Appropriation of social media for knowledge sharing by patients with chronic illness
📝 Abstract
Social media technologies are increasingly utilized by patients, leading to development of online social groups where patients share experiences and offer support to their peers on these platforms. There is limited research investigating actual use of social media platforms by patients, issues faced in using such platforms and how appropriation of these platforms impact patient outcomes. A conceptual model based on social support theory and model of technology appropriation is proposed in order to investigate factors that influence this phenomenon. The authors propose that social support theory and model of technology appropriation could explain the determining factors, both enablers and barriers that drive appropriation and knowledge sharing behaviours of patients on social media platforms.
💡 Analysis
Social media technologies are increasingly utilized by patients, leading to development of online social groups where patients share experiences and offer support to their peers on these platforms. There is limited research investigating actual use of social media platforms by patients, issues faced in using such platforms and how appropriation of these platforms impact patient outcomes. A conceptual model based on social support theory and model of technology appropriation is proposed in order to investigate factors that influence this phenomenon. The authors propose that social support theory and model of technology appropriation could explain the determining factors, both enablers and barriers that drive appropriation and knowledge sharing behaviours of patients on social media platforms.
📄 Content
Australasian Conference on Information Systems
Isika, Mendoza & Bosua 2015, Adelaide
Appropriation of social media platform
1
Appropriation of social media by patients with chronic
illness to share knowledge
Nwakego Ugochi Isika
Department of Computing and Information Systems
University of Melbourne
Melbourne, Australia
Email: nisika@student.unimelb.edu.au
Antonette Mendoza
Department of Computing and Information Systems
University of Melbourne
Melbourne, Australia
Email: mendozaa@unimelb.edu.au
Rachelle Bosua
Department of Computing and Information Systems
University of Melbourne
Melbourne, Australia
Email: rachelle.bosua@unimelb.edu.au
Abstract
Social media technologies are increasingly utilized by patients, leading to development of online social
groups where patients share experiences and offer support to their peers on these platforms. Yet, there
is limited research investigating actual use of: social media platforms by patients; issues faced in using
such platforms and how appropriation of these platforms impact patient outcomes. In this study, we
propose a conceptual model that encapsulates Social Support Theory and Model of Technology
Appropriation to investigate the role of social media and support networks in the health care domain,
especially for patients suffering from chronic illnesses. We propose that Social Support Theory and the
Model of Technology Appropriation could explain the determining factors both the enablers and
barriers that drive appropriation and knowledge sharing behaviours of patients on social media
platforms.
Keywords
Technology appropriation, knowledge sharing, social media platforms, Model of Technology
Appropriation, Social Support Theory
1 INTRODUCTION
The role of patients in healthcare has recently changed significantly with patients being expected to
actively participate in their care and treatment (Adams, 2010). This change is even more significant
with the uptake of social technologies that mediate this participation. To this effect, social media
platforms are increasingly utilized in the healthcare domain by patients with chronic illnesses (Househ
et al, 2014). Social groups formed online, enable patients with rare illnesses to find others beyond the
geographical barriers that once isolated sufferers of chronic illnesses (Fourie & Julien, 2014). In
addition, patients armed with information from their cohorts are empowered to take a more active role
in their personal health management. Furthermore, these platforms are not only taken up by patients
but also by family members and friends to be better informed on the situation the patient is going
through. Previous research has noted that increased usage of this platform by patients with chronic
illnesses provide patients the following: emotional support, ability to seek information from people in
similar circumstances, a forum to share knowledge and experiences as well as a plethora of other
benefits ( Lober & Flowers, 2011; Rozenblum & Bates, 2013; Househ et al., 2014). The majority of the
available studies are focused on predecessors of social media such as discussion forums, bulletin
boards and so on (Merolli et al, 2013). Prior studies suggest that little is known about the type of
information provided on this platform and how patients participate to make decisions on whether to
use or not to use information provided by their peers (Househ et al., 2014; Fernández-Luque & Bau,
2015) . These studies assert that there is a lack of in depth knowledge about how people use this
technology, and concur that understanding this would lead to patient empowerment and improved
health outcomes. Particularly, there is limited knowledge on the use of social media for health, and call
Australasian Conference on Information Systems
Isika, Mendoza & Bosua 2015, Adelaide
Appropriation of social media platform
2 for researchers from multiple disciplines to examine this phenomena. Furthermore, the majority of the literature examined has been from an intervention-based or medical view-point. Acquiring an understanding of how this platform is appropriated for use by patients will be beneficial for health authorities enabling them to leverage these tools in supporting public health efforts (Fernández-Luque & Bau, 2015). Hence the guiding question to be addressed by this study is: How do patients appropriate social media sites such as Facebook.com to share knowledge with their cohorts? Moreover, this investigation also explores the role of emotion on appropriation in this context. A growing body of IS literature notes that the decision to adopt and use a technology is often driven by the user’s emotion (Agarwal et al, 2010; Mendoza et al, 2013). We define appropriation as the relationship between the way the user desires to utilize a system, the capabilities of that system and the situations in which these systems are used (Carroll et a
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