| Summary: | Online Health Communities (OHCs) have become a major source of social,
emotional and informational support for people with health problems. There
has been much debate surrounding the potential benefits and costs of online
interaction. This debate is centred on the positive and negative effects online
health communities have on it users. Social network is believed to have great
impact on its participants as suggested by some works of literature, thus participants feel a sense of liberation from any perceived restriction placed in real
world either legally, socially or politically. Online Health communities have
been able to provide support to these individuals therefore, leading to a positive impact to the individual’s psychological well-being. On the other hand,
other line of literature on virtual communities suggest that online social platform can have a negative effect on the participants’ psychological well-being.
Therefore, this study focuses on the psychological impact of online health
communities. The constructs formulated in this study was based on several
construct formulated on studies related to online health communities and psy-
chological well-being. The construct utilized to fit the current study includes,
social support, social identification, online users behaviour and the psychological flourishing scale. Internet use, education, income level, age and gender were
included as control variables.
This study result showed that online behaviour, social identification and
social support positively impact the psychological well-being of users’ after
joining the online health community. While social identification played a positive predominant role in its impact, online behaviour and social support had a
considerable positive impact on psychological well-being. Out of five control
variables, only age influenced psychological well-being after joining the online
community. Overall, the measurement model explained 81% of variance in the
impact of online health communities on psychological well-being.
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