Understanding the Blogging Practices of Women Undergoing In Vitro Fertilization (IVF): A Discourse Analysis of Women’s IVF Blogs

Infertility and its associated treatments, including in vitro fertilization (IVF), can have a profound impact on the emotional health and well-being of women desiring to become mothers. Researchers have measured the impact of infertility and described the experience of infertility and its treatment, leaving the rich descriptions of the IVF experience as captured in women’s blogs to be explored. This discourse analysis describes the blogging practices of women undergoing IVF, exploring both the content and function of the IVF blog discourse. Data were collected from the text of seven women’s blogs (n=1,149 blog posts) and resulted in four main functions of the discourse: creation of and connection to a community, emotional support, blogging as therapy, and creation of an IVF resource. Findings suggest that blogging can have a positive impact on the psychosocial consequences experienced by women in fertility treatment

Tweet for behavior change: Using social media for the dissemination of public health messages

Background: Social media public health campaigns have the advantage of tailored messaging at low cost and large reach, but little is known about what would determine their feasibility as tools for inducing attitude and behavior change. Objective: The aim of this study was to test the feasibility of designing, implementing, and evaluating a social media–enabled intervention for skin cancer prevention. Methods: A quasi-experimental feasibility study used social media (Twitter) to disseminate different message “frames” related to care in the sun and cancer prevention. Phase 1 utilized the Northern Ireland cancer charity’s Twitter platform (May 1 to July 14, 2015). Following a 2-week “washout” period, Phase 2 commenced (August 1 to September 30, 2015) using a bespoke Twitter platform. Phase 2 also included a Thunderclap, whereby users allowed their social media accounts to automatically post a bespoke message on their behalf. Message frames were categorized into 5 broad categories: humor, shock or disgust, informative, personal stories, and opportunistic. Seed users with a notable following were contacted to be “influencers” in retweeting campaign content. A pre- and postintervention Web-based survey recorded skin cancer prevention knowledge and attitudes in Northern Ireland (population 1.8 million). Results: There were a total of 417,678 tweet impressions, 11,213 engagements, and 1211 retweets related to our campaign. Shocking messages generated the greatest impressions (shock, n=2369; informative, n=2258; humorous, n=1458; story, n=1680), whereas humorous messages generated greater engagement (humorous, n=148; shock, n=147; story, n=117; informative, n=100) and greater engagement rates compared with story tweets. Informative messages, resulted in the greatest number of shares (informative, n=17; humorous, n=10; shock, n=9; story, n=7). The study findings included improved knowledge of skin cancer severity in a pre- and postintervention Web-based survey, with greater awareness that skin cancer is the most common form of cancer (preintervention: 28.4% [95/335] vs postintervention: 39.3% [168/428] answered “True”) and that melanoma is most serious (49.1% [165/336] vs 55.5% [238/429]). The results also show improved attitudes toward ultraviolet (UV) exposure and skin cancer with a reduction in agreement that respondents “like to tan” (60.5% [202/334] vs 55.6% [238/428]). Conclusions: Social media–disseminated public health messages reached more than 23% of the Northern Ireland population. A Web-based survey suggested that the campaign might have contributed to improved knowledge and attitudes toward skin cancer among the target population. Findings suggested that shocking and humorous messages generated greatest impressions and engagement, but information-based messages were likely to be shared most. The extent of behavioral change as a result of the campaign remains to be explored, however, the change of attitudes and knowledge is promising. Social media is an inexpensive, effective method for delivering public health messages. However, existing and traditional process evaluation methods may not be suitable for social media

A study assessing the characteristics of big data environments that predict high research impact: application of qualitative and quantitative methods

BACKGROUND: Big data offers new opportunities to enhance healthcare practice. While researchers have shown increasing interest to use them, little is known about what drives research impact. We explored predictors of research impact, across three major sources of healthcare big data derived from the government and the private sector. METHODS: This study was based on a mixed methods approach. Using quantitative analysis, we first clustered peer-reviewed original research that used data from government sources derived through the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), and private sources of data from IBM MarketScan and Optum, using social network analysis. We analyzed a battery of research impact measures as a function of the data sources. Other main predictors were topic clusters and authors’ social influence. Additionally, we conducted key informant interviews (KII) with a purposive sample of high impact researchers who have knowledge of the data. We then compiled findings of KIIs into two case studies to provide a rich understanding of drivers of research impact. RESULTS: Analysis of 1,907 peer-reviewed publications using VHA, IBM MarketScan and Optum found that the overall research enterprise was highly dynamic and growing over time. With less than 4 years of observation, research productivity, use of machine learning (ML), natural language processing (NLP), and the Journal Impact Factor showed substantial growth. Studies that used ML and NLP, however, showed limited visibility. After adjustments, VHA studies had generally higher impact (10% and 27% higher annualized Google citation rates) compared to MarketScan and Optum (p<0.001 for both). Analysis of co-authorship networks showed that no single social actor, either a community of scientists or institutions, was dominating. Other key opportunities to achieve high impact based on KIIs include methodological innovations, under-studied populations and predictive modeling based on rich clinical data. CONCLUSIONS: Big data for purposes of research analytics has grown within the three data sources studied between 2013 and 2016. Despite important challenges, the research community is reacting favorably to the opportunities offered both by big data and advanced analytic methods. Big data may be a logical and cost-efficient choice to emulate research initiatives where RCTs are not possible

Data-Driven Meets Theory-Driven Research in the Era of Big Data: Opportunities and Challenges for Information Systems Research

The era of big data provides many opportunities for conducting impactful research from both data-driven and theory-driven perspectives. However, data-driven and theory-driven research have progressed somewhat independently. In this paper, we develop a framework that articulates important differences between these two perspectives and propose a role for information systems research at their intersection. The framework presents a set of pathways that combine the data-driven and theory-driven perspectives. From these pathways, we derive a set of challenges, and show how they can be addressed by research in information systems. By doing so, we identify an important role that information systems research can play in advancing both data-driven and theory-driven research in the era of big data

Communities of Empowerment: Exploring the Discourse Practices of Plus-Size Fashion Bloggers

Tämä väitöskirja tarkastelee pluskokoisten (engl. plus-size) muotibloggaajien verkkoyhteisössä tapahtuvaa vuorovaikutusta. Tutkimuksen fokuksessa ovat ne kielelliset ja diskursiiviset käytännöt, joita blogiyhteisön sisällä käytetään yhteisöllisyyden, identiteettien ja voimaantumisen kokemuksen rakentamiseen. Tutkimuksen kohteena on kahdestakymmenestä naisesta koostuva ryhmä, jonka kaikki jäsenet identifioituvat pluskokoisiksi, kirjoittavat muotiblogeja ja asuvat Iso-Britanniassa. Menetelmällisesti väitöskirja yhdistää blogitekstien ja -kommenttien laadullisen diskurssianalyysin määrälliseen, korpuslingvistiseen lähestymistapaan. Blogeista kerättiin tutkimusta varten noin 4,2 miljoonan sanan korpus. Blogitekstien tarkastelun lisäksi analysoin bloggaajien vastauksia kahteen kyselytutkimukseen, jotka lähetettiin heille vuosina 2015 ja 2017. Kyselyvastauksia tutkin temaattisen analyysin keinoin. Pluskokoiset naiset ovat olleet marginalisoituja muodin kentällä useiden vuosikymmenten ajan. Valtavirtamuodin kuvastossa he ovat näkymättömiä, eikä vaateteollisuus tarjoa heille samaa vaihtoehtojen kirjoa kuin pienempikokoisille naisille. Muotiblogien kautta valtavirtamuodin ulkopuolelle jääneet ryhmät, kuten juuri pluskokoiset naiset, ovat kuitenkin päässeet ilmaisemaan itseään ja tyylitajuaan uusin tavoin, muodostaen samalla sosiaalisia suhteita muiden samassa tilanteessa olevien ihmisten kanssa. Väitöstutkimukseni tarjoaa tähän mennessä puuttuneen kielitieteellisen näkökulman tähän ajankohtaiseen ilmiöön. Tutkimustulokseni osoittavat, että pluskokoisten muotiblogien genren sisällä on enemmän vaihtelua kuin aiemmat tutkimukset aiheesta ovat esittäneet. Siinä missä aiempi tutkimus on korostanut pluskokoisten naisten muotiblogien ja lihavuusaktivismin suhdetta, omissa tutkimustuloksissani korostuu yhteisön sisäinen monipuolisuus. Toisille bloggaajille aktivismi on blogin keskiössä, kun taas toiset identifioituvat ennen kaikkea muotibloggaajiksi ja haluavat tulla nähdyksi samassa valossa, kuin ne hoikat naiset, jotka kirjoittavat samankaltaisia blogeja. Joissakin blogeissa aiheiden kirjo on myös hyvin laaja, eivätkä vartalon kokoon ja siihen perustuvaan syrjintään liittyvät kysymykset näin ollen nouse yhtä keskeisiksi teemoiksi, kuin aktivismifokusoituneissa blogeissa. Yhteisön sisäisistä eroavaisuuksista huolimatta sen sisälle on muodostunut normatiivisia käytäntöjä, jotka ilmenevät myös ryhmän jäsenten käyttämässä kielessä. Esimerkiksi ryhmän sisäistä, sosiaalista identiteettiä rakennetaan käyttämällä tiettyä sanastoa pluskokoisten naisten vartaloiden kuvaamiseen. Ryhmäspesifejä kielellisiä ja diskursiivisia käytäntöjä hyödynnetään myös yhteisön rajojen määrittelyyn ja ryhmään kuulumattomien rajaamiseen sen ulkopuolelle. Yhden blogiyhteisön syvällisen tarkastelun lisäksi tähän väitöskirjaan sisällytetyt neljä tutkimusartikkelia muodostavat pohjan uudelle teoreettiselle ja menetelmälliselle mallille, jota voidaan tulevaisuudessa käyttää muiden verkkoviestintään pohjautuvien yhteisöjen tutkimiseen. Erityisesti väitöstutkimukseni tuloksia voidaan hyödyntää sosiaalisesti marginalisoitujen ryhmien yhteisöllisyyden tutkimuksessa. Tutkimustulokseni osoittavat, että kyseisten yhteisöjen kohdalla erilaisten aineistojen ja menetelmien yhdistäminen on erityisen tärkeää kokonaiskuvan muodostamiseksi tutkimuksen kohteena olevasta yhteisöstä. Väitöskirjani toimii myös esimerkkinä siitä, että marginalisoitujen ryhmien tutkimuksen ei tulisi keskittyä ainoastaan marginalisoidun ryhmän ja valtavirran välisiin suhteisiin, vaan kiinnittää erityistä huomiota myös ryhmän sisäisiin eroavaisuuksiin ja hierarkioihin. Koska digitaalinen viestintä on nykyään osa jokapäiväistä elämäämme, verkossa muodostuneet yhteisöt eivät välttämättä enää pysy erillään internetin ulkopuolisista suhteista. Tämä väitöstutkimus osoittaa, kuinka blogien kirjoittamisesta alkunsa saanut yhteisö voi kehittyä moniulotteiseksi verkostoksi, joka hyödyntää useita viestinnän kanavia ja jaettuja resursseja. Erityisesti marginalisoiduille yksilöille tämänkaltainen verkostoituminen voi olla voimavara sekä internetissä että sen ulkopuolella. Useille tutkimukseni kohteena olleille pluskokoisille naisille blogin kirjoittaminen toimi eräänlaisena ponnahduslautana psykologiseen, sosiaaliseen ja taloudelliseen voimaantumiseen.This doctoral dissertation explores the interactions that take place within an online community of plus-size fashion bloggers. Specifically, it focuses on the linguistic and discursive practices that these bloggers use to build community, to construct identities and to establish a sense of empowerment. The group of bloggers under investigation in the dissertation consists of 20 UK-based women who identify as plus-size and author fashion-focused blogs. Methodologically, the dissertation combines the qualitative discourse analysis of blog texts and comments with a quantitative, corpus-based investigation of a larger blog corpus of roughly 4.2 million words. In addition to textual blog material, questionnaire responses collected from the bloggers on two occasions (in 2015 and 2017) were studied using methods of thematic analysis. Plus-size women have been marginalized in the field of fashion for several decades. They are offered less clothing options than smaller women and ostracized in fashion imagery. Fashion blogs, however, have enabled people who have not had a voice in traditional fashion media to express their sense of fashion and to build relationships with similar others. This dissertation adds an important linguistic perspective to the existing literature on plus-size fashion blogging by addressing the variation within this sub-genre of fashion blogs through detailed linguistic and discursive analyses. The results reveal that there is more variation within the plus-size fashion blogging genre than previous studies have indicated. While earlier research has highlighted the activist aspects of plus-size fashion blogging, the results of this dissertation show that even though some bloggers identify strongly with the fat acceptance movement and have adopted a fat-activism-driven approach to blogging, others focus on more general fashion-related content, or blog about a wider variety of topics. However, despite these in-group differences, normative practices and behaviors can be observed within the community of plus-size fashion bloggers, and these practices are constructed through and reflected in the language the bloggers use. For example, using specific terms to describe plus-size women’s bodies functions as a way of constructing social identity within the blogging x community. At the same time, linguistic and discursive means are also used for maintaining the boundaries of the community by highlighting the differences between group members and outsiders. In addition to an in-depth investigation of one specific community of bloggers, the four articles included in this dissertation contribute to building a theoretical and methodological model for studying online interaction within other groups. In particular, the dissertation provides a new framework for studying the online interaction of groups that are marginalized in the mainstream media and society. The results show that when it comes to the study of such communities, combinations of different types of data (qualitative and quantitative), as well as several methodological approaches, are needed. This dissertation also illustrates that when researching marginalized groups, researchers should not focus merely on the relationship between a specific group and the societal structures and hierarchies that marginalize this group – the inner dynamics of the community of marginalized people also need to be investigated in detail. As digital communication has become a part of modern everyday life, communities that are formed on the internet no longer necessarily stay within the online realm, separate from our offline relationships. The findings presented in this dissertation illustrate how a community that starts out as an aggregate of people interacting on a particular digital platform can evolve into a complex, layered and multi-faceted network where individuals communicate through a variety of media, using a variety of shared resources. This type of community development may benefit marginalized individuals both online and offline. For many of the plus-size women investigated in this dissertation, blogging has functioned as a steppingstone to psychological, societal and financial empowerment

Cancer patient perspectives during the COVID-19 pandemic: A thematic analysis of cancer blog posts

The content of online cancer patient blogs has previously been analyzed to inform physicians about the cancer experience and patient concerns. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has greatly affected cancer patients due to their vulnerable health status, as well as changes in cancer testing and treatment. We sought to qualitatively describe the concerns and experiences expressed online by cancer patients, survivors, and family members in relation to COVID-19. 152 blog posts written by cancer patients, survivors, or family members, were selected using combined Boolean searches and snowball sampling. Reviewers extracted subthemes from blog posts using line-by-line text analysis until a sufficient sample was achieved. Subthemes were hierarchically organized into major theme categories and illustrative quotations were identified. A total of 80 blog posts posted between January 20th and April 6th, 2020 were analyzed, revealing 23 subthemes. Major theme categories included: the direct and indirect impacts of COVID-19 on personal health and the health of others, comparisons between COVID-19 and the cancer experience, the impact of COVID-19 on social and psychological wellbeing, perspectives on government and the public response to COVID-19, and coping mechanisms and gratitude. COVID-19 has significantly affected cancer patients, survivors, and family members. Subthemes and quotations relating to perceived medical abandonment, patient mental health, and the impact of previous cancer trauma on the ability to cope with COVID-19 highlight the need for healthcare professionals to be cognizant of evolving patient concerns, so they may provide reassurance and appropriate care to their patients in these exceptional circumstances. Experience Framework This article is associated with the Patient, Family & Community Engagement lens of The Beryl Institute Experience Framework. (http://bit.ly/ExperienceFramework) Access other PXJ articles related to this lens. Access other resources related to this lens

In the Words of the Medical Tourist: An Analysis of Internet Narratives by Health Travelers to Turkey

Background: Patients regularly travel to the West for advanced medical care, but now the trend is also shifting in the opposite direction. Many people from Western countries now seek care outside of their country. This phenomenon has been labeled medical tourism or health travel. Information regarding health travelers’ actual outcomes, experiences, and perceptions is lacking or insufficient. However, advanced Internet technology and apps provide information on medical tourism and are a vehicle for patients to share their experiences. Turkey has a large number of internationally accredited hospitals, is a top tourism destination, and is positioning itself to attract international patients. Objective: The objective of this research was to identify the important individual characteristics of health travelers, outline the push and pull factors for seeking health care in Turkey, identify satisfaction with the outcomes and the results of these individuals’ treatments, and note positive and negative factors influencing their perceptions and overall experiences about patients’ health travel. Methods: This research uses qualitative data from Internet narratives of medical tourists to Turkey. Ethical considerations of using Internet narratives were reviewed. Narratives for analysis were obtained by using the Google search engine and using multiple search terms to obtain publicly posted blogs and discussion board postings of health travelers via purposeful sampling. Narratives were included if they were written in English, described travel to Turkey for health care, and were publicly accessible. Exclusion criteria included narratives that were on medical tourism facilitator or provider promotional websites, not in English, and did not describe an experience of a medical tourist. Medical tourists’ written words were analyzed in an iterative analytic process using narrative analysis theory principles. Three stages of coding (open, axial, and selective) were conducted to identify characteristics and themes using qualitative analysis software. Results: The narrative posts of 36 individuals undergoing 47 procedures who traveled to Turkey for medical care between 2007 and 2012 were analyzed. The narratives came from 13 countries, not including the narratives for which patient origin could not be determined. Travelers were predominantly from Europe (16/36, 44%) and North America (10/36, 28%). Factors driving travelers away from their home country (push factors) were cost and lack of treatment options or insufficient insurance coverage in their home country. Leading factors attracting patients to destination (pull factors) were lower costs, physician’s expertise and responsiveness, and familiarity or interest in Turkey. Health travelers to Turkey were generally satisfied with the outcomes of their procedures and care provided by their physicians, many noting intent to return. Communication challenges, food, transportation, and gaps in customer service emerged as key areas for improvement. Conclusions: This analysis provides an understanding of the insights of medical tourists through the words of actual health travelers. This nonintrusive methodology provides candid insights of common themes of health travelers and may be applied to study other patient experiences. The findings of this research expands the body of knowledge in medical tourism and serves as a platform for further qualitative and quantitative research on health travelers’ experiences

Healthcare Professionals’ Views on Security – A Text Analytical Approach

Technological advancement has revolutionized patient care. With massive amount of data collected patients, personalized treatment can be provided. However, technology is a double-edge sword. Both news and media report the significant impact of security breaches, study of security is needed and as our work, life and health continually rely on more technologies, any breach or failure of the system could create disastrous impact. In this paper, we use a text analytic approach to study healthcare professionals’ view on security. Data were collected from 50 healthcare professionals with an average work experience of 17.5 years. A total of 145 posts were analyzed. The results indicate that healthcare organizations need to invest on employee training on security, developing standards in healthcare terminologies as well as security and privacy policies related to mobile and social media use