{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,12]],"date-time":"2026-03-12T01:45:54Z","timestamp":1773279954382,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":48,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"8","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2018,8,6]],"date-time":"2018-08-06T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1533513600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100001809","name":"National Natural Science Foundation of China","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["71532002"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["71532002"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100001809","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Information"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Online health communities (OHCs) should utilize health-care knowledge for enhancing online patient support. To examine the use of existing OHCs to identify the challenges and strategies of enhancing online patients\u2019 decision-making support, we conducted a descriptive study to evaluate the information availability, user availability and knowledge usability in 100 carefully-selected health-related websites. On the basis of criteria for effective OHCs, we used three evaluation instruments for health-care professionals to review and score the websites. Questionnaire results were examined from the perspective of information, user and knowledge support. Results corroborate that over 80% of the websites facilitate effective social functions, whereas only 33% provide health-care decision-making services to online patients. Approximately 46% of them satisfy four or five effective OHCs\u2019 criteria. Three of them only offer the functions of patients\u2019 charts and journals to support health data management. Although the existing OHCs are facilitated with good social interaction and support, only a few can assist patients in making effective health-care decisions, not to mention properly using health-care knowledge support.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/info9080199","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2018,8,7]],"date-time":"2018-08-07T03:44:18Z","timestamp":1533613458000},"page":"199","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":9,"title":["Enhancing Online Patient Support through Health-Care Knowledge in Online Health Communities: A Descriptive Study"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"9","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-1786-7551","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Donghua","family":"Chen","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Information Management, School of Economics and Management, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-0246-5058","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Runtong","family":"Zhang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Information Management, School of Economics and Management, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Kecheng","family":"Liu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Henley Business School, University of Reading, Reading RG6 6UD, UK"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Lei","family":"Hou","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Henley Business School, University of Reading, Reading RG6 6UD, UK"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2018,8,6]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"e67","DOI":"10.2196\/resprot.3500","article-title":"Trying eHealth tools to patient needs: Exploring the use of eHealth for community-dwelling patients with complex chronic disease and disability","volume":"3","author":"Gray","year":"2014","journal-title":"JMIR Res. 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