{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,2,20]],"date-time":"2026-02-20T07:02:17Z","timestamp":1771570937411,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":42,"publisher":"Emerald","issue":"4","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2020,6,8]],"date-time":"2020-06-08T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1591574400000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/www.emerald.com\/insight\/site-policies"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["LHT"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2020,6,8]]},"abstract":"<jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-subheading\">Purpose<\/jats:title><jats:p>Online health communities (OHCs) are attracting more and more healthy consumers, including patients, their families, caregivers and the general public. This paper aims to explore the themes and characteristics of patient-generated content (PGC) in Chinese OHCs.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-subheading\">Design\/methodology\/approach<\/jats:title><jats:p>Baidu Tieba for hypertension was selected as the research site. Online ethnography (netnography) approach was utilized to explore the PGC and health communication in the online hypertension community. The final database included 300 randomly sampled threads and their 3,187 reply posts and was further analyzed from three perspectives: health information needs, attitudes and psychological reactions to hypertension and social support exchange.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-subheading\">Findings<\/jats:title><jats:p>The members' health information needs were mainly concentrated on five aspects: causes, symptoms, measuring instrument, tests and diagnosis and treatment. Their attitudes and psychological reactions to hypertension varied with the context, for example, disease stage, health condition. Within the health communication, three types of social support \u2013 information support, emotional support and network support \u2013 were generated, transmitted and exchanged among members.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-subheading\">Practical implications<\/jats:title><jats:p>OHCs are able to serve as important source of health information and tool for health education. The implications and suggestions for health promotion of individuals, health information services optimization of OHCs and national health strategy plans were also discussed.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-subheading\">Originality\/value<\/jats:title><jats:p>This is the first netnography study in information field on Chinese online hypertension community. This study provides a new perspective to explore the needs, attitudes and social support behaviors of Chinese hypertension population and also enables the Chinese experience of using OHCs to reduce health disparities to come to the world.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.1108\/lht-08-2019-0172","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2020,6,10]],"date-time":"2020-06-10T06:06:31Z","timestamp":1591769191000},"page":"883-896","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":9,"title":["Communication that changes lives: an exploratory research on a Chinese online hypertension community"],"prefix":"10.1108","volume":"38","author":[{"given":"Dongxiang","family":"Zhao","sequence":"first","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Qiping","family":"Zhang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Feicheng","family":"Ma","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]}],"member":"140","reference":[{"issue":"8","key":"key2020110406482153500_ref001","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"e163","DOI":"10.2196\/jmir.2098","article-title":"Barriers and facilitators for the implementation of an online clinical health community in addition to usual fertility care: a cross-sectional study","volume":"15","year":"2013","journal-title":"Journal of Medical Internet Research"},{"key":"key2020110406482153500_ref002","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"13","DOI":"10.1016\/j.ijmedinf.2016.11.005","article-title":"Exploring the benefits and challenges of health professionals' participation in online health communities: emergence of (dis) empowerment processes and outcomes","volume":"98","year":"2017","journal-title":"International Journal of Medical Informatics"},{"issue":"3","key":"key2020110406482153500_ref003","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"385","DOI":"10.1177\/146879410100100307","article-title":"Thematic networks: an analytic tool for qualitative research","volume":"1","year":"2001","journal-title":"Qualitative Research"},{"issue":"4","key":"key2020110406482153500_ref004","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"e84","DOI":"10.2196\/jmir.5374","article-title":"What is the profile of individuals joining the KNEEguru online health community? 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