A classification scheme for analyses of messages exchanged in online health forums

• Type: Article in International Scientific Journal
• Date: 2019

Authors

Carla Teixeira Lopes (Author) FEUP; Bárbara Guimarães da Silva (Author) Other

Journal

Title: Information Research

Vol. 24 No. 1

Pages: 1-17

ISSN: 1368-1613

Publisher: University of Boras

Indexing

ISI Web of Knowledge - 1 Citation

Other information

Authenticus ID: P-00Q-BQ0

Abstract (EN): Introduction. Online health forums help to surface and organize patients' knowledge and make it useful for many. They are used by many to seek for advice or to share what they know about health subjects. Being an important communication medium, it's important to understand why and how it is used. Method. In this work we examine and categorize messages of an online health forum, with the purpose of providing a classification scheme that can be used by the research community in future analyses. The definition of the classification scheme was iterative and its inter-rater reliability was assessed twice using Cohen's Kappa statistic. Analysis. The classification scheme arose from a content analysis of 3,399 messages from several communities of an online health forum. Findings. The scheme is divided into four sections of categories and each section has several subcategories, in total there are 23 subcategories. The inter-rater agreement assessment of the scheme showed a good consistency between coders. The majority of the categories has a Cohen's Kappa agreement above 0.4. Conclusion. The proposed classification scheme facilitates the analysis of messages exchanged in online health forums for several purposes, including studies of information seeking.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific

No. of pages: 17