Attraction, selection, and attrition in online health communities: Initial conversations and their association with subsequent activity levels.

Background: The effectiveness of online health communities (OHCs) for improving outcomes for health care consumers, health professionals, and health services has already been well investigated. However, research on determinants of OHC users' activity levels, what is associated with attrition or attraction to these communities, and the impacts of initial posts is limited.

Objectives: We sought to explore topic exchanges in OHCs and determine how users' initial posts and community reactions to them are associated with their subsequent activity levels.

The influence of health-specific social network site use on the psychological well-being of cancer-affected people.

Objective: We aimed to explore and examine how and in what ways the use of social network sites (SNSs) can improve health outcomes, specifically better psychological well-being, for cancer-affected people.

Methods: Qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with users of the Ovarian Cancer Australia Facebook page (OCA Facebook), the exemplar SNS used in this study. Twenty-five women affected by ovarian cancer who were users of OCA Facebook were interviewed.