Parental experiences of eczema advice in online parenting forums: a qualitative interview study.

Background: Parents of children with eczema are increasingly turning to online parenting forums for advice about how to manage it. Little is known about how parents make sense of advice about eczema treatments in online forums, and how it affects their management of childhood eczema.

Aim: To explore how parents of children with eczema make sense of and act on advice about eczema treatments exchanged in online parenting forums.

Design & Setting: Qualitative interviews with parents of children with eczema from the UK.

Method: Fifteen parents were recruited through online advertisements and snowball sampling. Semi-structured interviews were carried out face to face or by telephone, and analysed inductively using reflexive thematic analysis.

Results: When seeking advice from online parenting forums about eczema treatments, parents described appraising the credibility of advice and considering the potential suitability of treatments that were recommended in the forum. Parents proceeded to make sense of online advice through either reading advice and not engaging in online discussions, or actively engaging in online discussions to direct topics and seek most relevant advice. Parents discussed advice received online in subsequent consultations with their GP and requested prescriptions of recommended treatments. Some parents described trying new treatments without consulting their GP.

Conclusion: Understanding how parents appraise, make sense of, and act on online advice could support healthcare professionals to disseminate advice appropriately, ask additional questions, and signpost parents to reliable online resources.