Infertility patients' need and preferences for online peer support.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Grunberg PH
PROVIDER: S-EPMC6282097 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Aug
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
Infertility patients' need and preferences for online peer support.
Grunberg Paul H PH Dennis Cindy-Lee CL Da Costa Deborah D Zelkowitz Phyllis P
Reproductive biomedicine & society online 20180801
This study sought to determine the level of interest in online peer support among infertility patients, factors associated with such interest, and preferences for features of an online peer support network. A sample of 236 men and 283 women (<i>n</i> = 519) seeking fertility treatment were recruited from four clinics in Ontario and Quebec, Canada. Participants completed an anonymous online questionnaire assessing demographics, perceived stress and fertility characteristics, in addition to intere ...[more]
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Project description:Help seeking for online peer and other social support in response to depression and other mental health problems offers an electronic technology alternative to traditional mental health care. Here, with nationally representative samples of adult community residents in the USA, we study online peer support help seeking, estimate its occurrence, and investigate depression and other suspected predictors and correlates, some of which might prove to be causal influences.The data are from nationally representative probability sample surveys of the non-institutionalized US adult population, with a new independent sample assessed via confidential computerized self-assessment modules each year from 2004 to 2010, yielding estimates about online peer support. A total of 264,431 adults participated in these years.An estimated three per 1000 adults (0.3%) seek online peer support for mental health problems each year (95% confidence interval 0.0022-0.0036). Individuals with depression and/or serious psychological distress are strongly over-represented among these adult online peer support help seekers (odds ratio >7, p < 0.001). Associations with college education, being non-Hispanic white, being female, and age are also noteworthy (p < 0.05).Online help seeking for mental health social support is becoming frequent enough for study in large sample national surveys, and might well be fostered by active neuropsychiatric ailments such as depression or other serious psychological distress. Open questions remain about whether the result is beneficial, or conditions required for efficacious online peer support, as might be disclosed in definitive evidence from randomized controlled trials.
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