Making Sense of the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Use of Blogging by People with Inflammatory Bowel Disease.

During the global COVID-19 pandemic one population that faced special challenges was individuals with preexisting chronic health conditions. In this study, we examined how people with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) managed their autoimmune disease, considering their increased susceptibility to contracting COVID-19. Specifically, we analyzed how people with IBD made sense of their precarious position through the writing of publicly accessible blogs.

Inflammatory Bowel Disease Patient Leaders' Responsibility for Disseminating Health Information Online.

Medical professionals have long been concerned about the lack of accurate information in some online spaces. People with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) have a great need for health information, and with the rise of social media platforms, patients are going online to share and receive health information from other patients. This study aimed to uncover how patient leaders of online IBD communities share health information, and how they conceive their responsibility to provide accurate information.

The Social Construction of Inflammatory Bowel Disease Using Social Media Technologies.

Many people with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), sometimes lacking adequate face-to-face sources of support, turn to online communities to meet others with the disease. These online communities are places of support and education, but through the use of social media communication technologies, people with IBD are redefining what it means to live with the disease. This ethnographic study followed 14 online communities to understand how people with IBD used social media technologies to construct their own meanings about living with the disease.

Inconsistencies in reporting risk information: a pilot analysis of online news coverage of West Nile Virus.

West Nile Virus (WNV) has been reported as one of the worst epidemics in US history. This study sought to understand how WNV news stories were framed and how risk information was portrayed from its 1999 arrival in the US through the year 2012. The authors conducted a quantitative content analysis of online news articles obtained through Google News ( N = 428).

Support often outweighs stigma for people with inflammatory bowel disease.

Inflammatory bowel disease is associated with many embarrassing symptoms: frequent, urgent, or bloody diarrhea; weight loss from malnutrition or weight gain from adverse effects of medicine; abdominal cramping and bloating; and occasionally incontinence. The course of the disease is often unpredictable, as the disease fluctuates between remission and flare-up. Because of the embarrassing nature and the unpredictability of the disease, many people feel stigmatized or perceive that they will be stigmatized because of their disease.

Self-disclosing my ostomy to the dominant culture: an autoethnography.

Living with an ostomy is a major change to a person's body and poses difficult questions about how to disclose personal medical information to others. This autoethnography examines my time with an ostomy through the lens of co-cultural theory and sheds light on how people with ostomies communicate with the dominant culture, in this case people without ostomies. I discuss how my communication goals and approaches evolved over time.

The presence of social support messages on YouTube videos about inflammatory bowel disease and ostomies.

The purpose of this study was to explore the types of social support messages YouTube users posted on medical videos. Specifically, the study compared messages posted on inflammatory bowel disease-related videos and ostomy-related videos. Additionally, the study analyzed the differences in social support messages posted on lay-created videos and professionally-created videos.