Does Use of Health Language Improve Social Support Outcome? Linguistic Analysis of Online Health Communities

Online health communities (OHCs) have become an important source for patients to seek social support, while not all the patients are effectively utilizing such platforms. As the effective use of healthcare language should affect the chances of social support, this study examines how linguistic features present in patients' text-based communication. Lexical, syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic features are extracted from OHC message posts to construct linguistic profiles of patients. Network analysis is used to identify key relationships between the linguistic profiles and communication ties. The expected findings in this research will provide practical implications for patients regarding how to strategize their writings in OHCs to increase the chances of obtaining social support.