Social support and audience engagement of lupus-related posts on social networking sites in China.

Background: Lupus, known as a chronic multisystem autoimmune disease, has become more common in China currently. Above all, most Chinese Lupus patients haven't ample knowledge and adequate understanding of this complicated chronic disease. In recent years, social networking sites have created an interactive environment in which patients can obtain health information and also can exchange personal experiences with others having similar health concerns. Objective: The overall aim of this study is to develop a better understanding of the social support requested and received during the routine social media use of lupus activists and their referents. In other words. This paper seeks to explore whether the lupus-related posts disseminated on the Sina microblog platform can serve and satisfy the needs of this group. Methods: Content analysis and descriptive analysis were conducted to ascertain the core topics of lupus-related posts on the Sina microblog. Chi-square tests were performed to determine the differences in types of social support between provision and request groups, as well as engaged and non-engaged groups. Finally, negative binomial regression was undertaken to investigate which types of social support generated more audience engagement. Results: By analyzing 9822 lupus-related posts derived from the Sina microblog, disease description was the most prominent theme. Evidence is presented which shows that information support was requested and supplied more frequently than emotional and instrumental support. Specifically, information support was provided more than requested, while the instrumental and emotional support provisions were less numerous than the requests. Analysis revealed that posts containing information support provisions attracted more engagement than those with the other five types of social support. Conclusions: Social networking sites play a critical role on disseminating lupus-related information and provide an interactive space in which users can freely communicate their health conditions and seek peer support. However, health practitioners not only have to present more communication strategies to provide emotional and instrumental support through social media, but also have to boost audience engagement.