Understanding Patients' Perceptions of Social Support Features on Social Media and its Effects on Behaviour Change

Abstract

Social media has become one of the most effective tools that diabetic patients increasingly use to adopt healthy behaviour in recent times. It has grown into one of the most social media platforms that diabetic patients gradually use to adopt healthy behaviour in the latest times. However, social support features on social media groups have significantly improved diabetic life, illustrating its practical impact on meeting diabetic patients' requirements. Exchanging social support features such as” Informational, emotional, belonging, and instrumental” in social media groups have played a remarkable role in maintaining diabetic conditions. Many studies covered Facebook's role in enhancing diabetic life, illustrating its practical effect on meeting diabetic patients' needs. Based on the latest update within the literature, there is a need to investigate the role of social support groups on social media and their role in changing patient behaviour. Recent studies do not present this appropriately, mainly when they refer to social media as a primary tool to identify patient behaviour change. Therefore, this research aims to fill the gaps in this area by focusing on patients' perceptions of social media usage to change patients' health behaviour regarding social support groups on social media. The research aims to understand patient perceptions of social support features on social media and its effects on their behaviour change. Mix method research composed to generate three main results chapters. First, the study started with a Delphi study to develop and validate a robust instrument that adequately captures the properties of the key constructs, domains, and relevant items required to study the role of social support features on diabetic Facebook groups and their effect on behaviour change. Second, the quantitative result is a crosssectional design that involves carrying out an online-based questionnaire, which is considered an appropriate design for such a study. In other words, this research conducted an online questionnaire to understand what patients believe about the role of social media in empowering social support aspects among virtual societies to encourage them to promote their health by changing unhealthy habits and adopting healthy behaviour. Third, the study conducted interviews with 12 diabetic patients who have experience with such social support groups on diabetes Facebook groups. It is an unstructured interview focused on patients’ free expression and their beliefs and experiences of diabetes Facebook groups. To validate an instrument to identify and measure diabetic patient perceptions of social support features on Facebook and their impact on behaviour change. An E-Delphi study was conducted, and 15 health and Information technology experts were involved. Two rounds have been completed, including 15 experts for round one and 12 experts for round two, to validate the new instrument that includes 57 items. The last instrument version involves 45 items with overall acceptable scale values, “relevance = 0.910, clarity = 0.900, and Importance = 0.862”, presenting an acceptable validity level for this novel instrument. However, further study must be conducted to validate the instrument developed in an empirical study. A cross-sectional survey collected a total of 339 questionnaires from Diabetic Facebook group users, 161 of which were included in the model analysis. SPSS was used for clearing and descriptive analysis, and a partial least square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) used SmartPLS (Version 4.0.7.8) to analyze the measurement model and structural model tests for the study model “Developed Framework”. The results show that diabetes Facebook group users got helpful information “Content and 2 Source”, which indicates an enhancement in their awareness of diabetes disease, leading them to increase motivation to use such these groups, which led to growth in diabetes patients’ behaviour change. The research outcome states that there is a solid and positive impact on users’ behaviour change when they use diabetes Facebook groups. There was a positive relationship between users’ “Awareness, Instrumental Support, Ease of Use, Privacy Risk, and Usefulness” and their Motivation to use diabetes Facebook groups. There were no statistically adequate Emotional Support and Belonging Support on usage Motivation to use diabetes Facebook groups. The primary purpose of this qualitative part is to deeply understand the diabetic patient's perceptions of social support features on Facebook and how to utilize such technology to deal with this chronic disease, followed by its effect on behaviour change. A qualitative study was conducted at DFGs with 12 Arab members who had previously done the questionnaire and agreed to endure doing the online interview. The study was conducted to learn more about how they utilized the group "Facebook" pages' social support elements in detail. The collected data was analyzed using thematic approaches. Twelve interview transcripts were uploaded and analyzed using NVivo 12 software. The results show that DFGs have played a remarkable role in changing patient behaviour in their eating and practising habits. This study’s findings showed that the developed framework could explain customers' motivation to use diabetic Facebook groups, leading them to change their behaviour. In the end, the study afforded ideas and recommendations for further study and the implications of its study outcomes.