WEB 2.0 BASED APPLICATIONS FOR ASTHMA/COPD PATIENTS; SOCIAL NETWORKING PLATFORM FOR SELF-MANAGEMENT VIA KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE

Abstract

The world-wide-web has become a popular medium for health-related information exchange. New tools in Web 2.0 allow dynamic, disease-specific discussions. The impact on self-care and healthcare-related decisions merit academic focus and recognition. Our goal of this thesis is to assess the extent to which online social media are useful as information diffusion and knowledge exchange media, as guided by Asthma and COPD Action Plan recommendations. In this work, text data collected from online discussion forums were mined using syntax classification components of Symptoms and Actions. Coded text data were mapped to SNOMED-CT, UMLS, and Consumer Health Vocabulary to match clinical data terminology standards specified by the action plan. Those mapped data were converted into meta-matrix data for online group social networks and statistical analysis. The data analyses supported the hypothesis that unguided social media information exchange is congruent with two out of eight symptoms and actions. Results lead to the conclusion that health professional mediation is recommended.