A hybrid-method study into patients combining mass and interpersonal media on forums.

Patients increasingly take an active role in their health. They actively combine both mass and interpersonal media to gratify their needs (i.e., convergence). Understanding patients’ convergence is important to better understand how and where patients fulfill their needs. Owing to methodological challenges when studying convergence, a detailed view of how patients are using different media for needs fulfillment is lacking. This study explores the frequency of convergence, how convergence affects what posters write online, motives for posting, and the needs posters are trying to fulfill. Using a hybrid method (content analysis and supervised machine learning), this study used naturally available data to fill this research gap. We analyzed opening posts (N=1708) of a forum targeting cancer patients and their relatives. Nearly one-third of the forum opening posts contained signs of convergence. Posts containing mass media references disclosed less personal information and were more geared toward community enhancement and sharing experiences compared to posts without convergence. Furthermore, compared to posts without convergence, posts that included interpersonal media references disclosed more personal information, and posters were more likely to ask for the experiences of fellow users to fulfill their needs. Within posts containing convergence, posts including interpersonal media references reported fewer shortages of information, disclosed more information about the disease, and were more active in seeking other posters’ experiences compared to posts containing mass media references. This study highlights that media use should not be studied in isolation from other media use. The insights of this study can be used to adapt the health care system toward a new type of health information–seeking behavior in which one medium is not suited to fulfill all needs. Providers should accept the intertwinement of sources by providing patients with reliable websites and forums through which they can fulfill their needs.