Åsa Smedberg

Learning conversations for people with established bad habits : a study of four health communities

During recent years, online communities on the internet have grown in number. One area where these communities have become widely used is the healthcare sector. Besides the online communities for people who suffer from diseases, there are also communities for people who want to get rid of bad habits and learn how to develop a new behaviour. The question is how these communities manage to trigger learning. In this article, a study of the patterns of conversations in four online health-communities on bad habits is presented. The study focused on the usage of counter acts for learning purposes. The communities showed a relatively low frequency of responses that included opposition and counter-ideas. However, most of the time when these occurred, the community members managed to stay neutral or even balance opposition with empathy.

How to Combine the Online Community with Ask the Expert System in a Health Care Site

Online communities and so-called Ask the Expert systems aim at supporting online interaction for knowledge sharing and learning. One area where these kinds of knowledge tools have become widely used is the health care sector. Through online interaction, medical trained experts can help people with concerns about diseases and other health-related problems, and those who suffer from a certain health issue can come together to share experiences and advice. During recent years, studies have been done of the usage of different knowledge tools. However, holistic studies of the use of the two tools for online interaction have not been done. This paper presents results from a study of an online health-community and an Ask the Expert system for people who suffer from overweight. Differences and similarities in regards to knowledge sharing are presented.

E-Health Communities and Online Self-Help Groups : Applications and Usage

E-health communities, also called Web-based health communities, have become popular arenas for support and sharing of experience, knowledge and advice among patients and citizens. E-health communit ...

Enabling Cross-Usage of Public Health Systems - A Holistic Approach to Ask the Expert Systems and Online Communities

The number of users of health systems on the Internet has increased at a rapid pace. The systems are browsed for health information, and online interactions take place with medical experts as well as with people who have similar health problems. This paper presents a study of the usage of two different types of health systems: Ask the Expert system and online communities for people with overweight. The study focused on the different types of questions as well as information, advice and recommendations posted in the systems. Starting point of the study was the questions and answers presented in the Ask the Expert system. The results show how the systems serve as complements, and suggestions on how to enable the users to easily cross-use the systems are presented. Such development could help the users to get a fuller picture and better understanding of different health issues.

Impediments to Effective Management of Project Interdependencies: A Study of IT/IS Project Portfolios

Interdependencies between projects have come to play a more active role in the decision on IT/IS portfolios and their constituent projects. However, managing these interdependencies can be a complex task, especially when the number and degree of interdependencies among projects are high. In times of uncertainty, unexpected challenges can seriously disrupt projects and, consequently, their interdependencies. This may threaten the project portfolio from achieving its final goal. The study aims to investigate the difficulties associated with managing project interdependence along the development cycle of the project portfolio. The study was conducted using a qualitative approach and semi-structured interviews with managers from four leading organizations in Saudi Arabia. The findings reveal three main categories of factors that increased the difficulty of managing project interdependencies in large IT/IS project portfolios: insufficient understanding of human responsibilities in the whole portfolio, unpredictability of the environment, and technology barriers and constraints.

Online Stress Management: Design for Reflections and Social Support

An increasing number of people suffer from high levels of stress and experience strong and unhealthy reactions to different stressors. Various kinds of applications for self-help are available on the Internet. However, the technology for stress management purposes is still in its early phase. This paper presents the ideas behind the design of an artifact that combines different technologies and offers support for individual as well as social reflections. The work is anchored in conventional system development methods and interdisciplinary research in the field of e-health. It is based on the holistic idea of combining areas of self-help, evidence-based information and learning through feedback and communication in groups and with experts that have been manifested in a web-based stress management system. The work presented in this paper is a further development towards integration of different technologies and learning aids. It integrates a mobile phone app with a web-based system for people with stress management issues. The proposed system supports social reflections through the possibility to share reflections in various social forums.

Web Communities for Preventive Health Care - Experienced Usability and Health Impact among Smokers and Overweight People

The number of web based health communities has increased during the latest years, and so has also the number of users. Among these, we find the health communities for people who suffer from lifestyle problems. These communities aim at helping people change their habits, and thereby preventing them from getting severe illnesses later. The communities are used for conversations about everyday struggles for a healthier lifestyle, and they contain issues concerning treatments, exercises, motivation, setbacks, etc. The question is in what ways and to what extent these communities support self-management among the members. This paper presents the results from a survey to members of a web community on overweight and another one on smoking. The results showed the members’ appreciation for existing conversational topics on facts and motivation. They also thought that answers in which the senders offer new perspectives were valuable and could increase.

Online Health-Communities on Bad Habits for Preventive Care

This paper presents the results from a study of people with established bad habits and their conversations together in online health-communities. Target groups of the study have been overweight people, smokers, and alcohol and drug abusers who want to change life-style. The conversation issues raised in the communities were categorized based on the type of content. Frequency of the different types of issues was stated, and differences as well as similarities between the communities were investigated. Finally, suggestions on how to help community members to further develop conversations for learning purposes were proposed. Such a new design could also help active members as well as lurkers to more easily browse the communities for a certain type of conversation.

Exploring the needs and possibilities of physicians’ continuing professional development - An explorative qualitative study in a Chinese primary care context

Background One component of the 2009 Chinese health care reform plan is to train general practitioners to improve the delivery of primary care services. This continuing professional development is expected to further improve the physicians’ competencies to be general practitioners in primary care. Augmented reality–a combination of virtual information and the real environment–may enhance general practitioners’ continuing professional development by allowing their learning experiences to overlap with their workplace practice. Objective To explore the needs, opportunities, and challenges involved in continuing professional development for Chinese physicians becoming competent general practitioners within primary care, with a special focus on the possibilities of applying augmented reality. Methods This study used a qualitative approach with semi-structured face-to-face interviews. Two managers and thirteen physicians (from four community health centers and stations) participated. The data were analyzed using a thematic inductive analysis approach. Results Based on our interviews, most of the physicians were not fully trained as general practitioners but still assumed the duties of that position; they were supposed to eventually become fully trained in line with the reforms of the Chinese primary care system. However, they reported a lack of in-service training opportunities to fulfill this goal. Even those who said that they had such opportunities perceived the efficacy of that training as being poor. The managers and most of the physicians reacted positively to the idea of using augmented reality in continuing professional development, and they suggested antibiotics treatment, surgery, and emergency care as learning areas in which augmented reality could be applied. Conclusions Due to the Chinese reforms of the primary care system, both managers and the physicians themselves expect general practitioners to become qualified by engaging in continuing professional development. Both groups also regarded augmented reality as a potentially useful tool.

Online Stress Management for Self- and Group-Reflections on Stress Patterns

In today’s society, many people suffer from unhealthy levels of stress. A result of being exposed to a lot of stressors for a longer period of time, and showing strong stress reactions to these, is decreased wellbeing and eventually sick leaves. To intervene at an early stage is therefore important. However, learning about one’s stress reactions and struggling for empowerment can be a challenge. Different types of applications for self-help are available on the Internet, but the ones for stress management are still in their early phase. In this article, we emphasize the social aspects of stress management. We present an artifact designed for analyzing and reflecting upon stress patterns, through both self- and group-reflections. This artifact is a result of further research work towards an integrated holistic stress management platform. The holistic platform includes a mobile application for storing data about events that cause stress reactions and a web-based system in which different actors and functions can complement each other, through self-help exercises, evidence-based information and learning through interaction with peers and experts. The research is based on traditional system development methods and interdisciplinary research in the area of e-health.