Evidence map›Paper›PMID 28768609›Full record

ArticleJournal of medical Internet research2017

Toward Predicting Social Support Needs in Online Health Social Networks.

Min-Je Choi, Sung-Hee Kim, Sukwon Lee, Bum Chul Kwon, Ji Soo Yi, Jaegul Choo, Jina Huh

Open access · goldAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Journal of medical Internet research, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
9citing papers in PubMed
6.4field-weighted citation impact, top 4% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

9 citing papers in PubMed, 26 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Endometriosis Communities on Reddit: Quantitative Analysis.Journal of medical Internet research · 2025
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

7 authors at 5 institutions in 2 countries.

Min-Je ChoiDepartment of Computer Science and Engineering, Korea University, Seoul, Republic Of Korea.ORCID 0000-0002-6730-5517
Sung-Hee KimDepartment of Industrial ICT Engineering, Dong-eui University, Busan, Republic Of Korea.ORCID 0000-0002-9769-0516
Sukwon LeeDepartment of Industrial Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, United States.ORCID 0000-0001-6194-2470
Bum Chul KwonIBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY, United States.ORCID 0000-0002-9391-6274
Ji Soo YiSamsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Seoul, Republic Of Korea.ORCID 0000-0002-7545-3878
Jaegul ChooDepartment of Computer Science and Engineering, Korea University, Seoul, Republic Of Korea.ORCID 0000-0003-1071-4835
Jina HuhDivision of Biomedical Informatics, University of California San Diego, San Diego, CA, United States.ORCID 0000-0001-5811-9256
Korea University · KRPurdue University West Lafayette · USDong-Eui University · KRSamsung (South Korea) · KRUniversity of California San Diego · US

Funding

University of Washington Biomedical Informatics and Data Science Research Training ProgramT15LM007442 · NLM · UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON · PI JOHN H. GENNARI, Andrea L. Hartzler · 2002 to 2026
$19.6M
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundWhile online health social networks (OHSNs) serve as an effective platform for patients to fulfill their various social support needs, predicting the needs of users and providing tailored information remains a challenge.

objectiveThe objective of this study was to discriminate important features for identifying users' social support needs based on knowledge gathered from survey data. This study also provides guidelines for a technical framework, which can be used to predict users' social support needs based on raw data collected from OHSNs.

methodsWe initially conducted a Web-based survey with 184 OHSN users. From this survey data, we extracted 34 features based on 5 categories: (1) demographics, (2) reading behavior, (3) posting behavior, (4) perceived roles in OHSNs, and (5) values sought in OHSNs. Features from the first 4 categories were used as variables for binary classification. For the prediction outcomes, we used features from the last category: the needs for emotional support, experience-based information, unconventional information, and medical facts. We compared 5 binary classifier algorithms: gradient boosting tree, random forest, decision tree, support vector machines, and logistic regression. We then calculated the scores of the area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC) to understand the comparative effectiveness of the used features.

resultsThe best performance was AUC scores of 0.89 for predicting users seeking emotional support, 0.86 for experience-based information, 0.80 for unconventional information, and 0.83 for medical facts. With the gradient boosting tree as our best performing model, we analyzed the strength of individual features in predicting one's social support need. Among other discoveries, we found that users seeking emotional support tend to post more in OHSNs compared with others.

conclusionsWe developed an initial framework for automatically predicting social support needs in OHSNs using survey data. Future work should involve nonsurvey data to evaluate the feasibility of the framework. Our study contributes to providing personalized social support in OHSNs.

Indexed as

Social NetworkingSocial SupportFemaleHealth BehaviorHumansMaleTelemedicinegradient boosting treesmachine learningonline health communityonline health social networkprediction modelssocial media

Identifiers

PMID28768609
PMCPMC5559652
OpenAlexW2741304513

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.