Supportive Communication, SOVC
and Health Outcomes in Online
Infertility Groups
Jennifer Welbourne, PhD
University of Texas- Pan American
Anita Blanchard, PhD and
Marla Boughton, MA
University of North Carolina Charlotte

Infertility and Virtual Health
Communities
 Significant, increasing number of
couples who experience infertility
 May lack traditional (FtF) support
outlets
 Virtual health communities can
provide support

Advantages of Virtual Health
Communities
 No temporal & geographic
boundaries
 Increased heterogeneity of network
 Increased comfort

Supportive Communication in Virtual
Health Communities
 Types of Supportive Communication
 Emotional
 Informational
 Engaging in Supportive
Communication
 Actively providing support
 Receiving support
 Observing exchange of support

Psychosocial Benefits
 Active Participation
 Greater improvement in mood (Rodgers &
Chen, 2005)
 Enhanced well-being and decreased
negative mood (Shaw et al, 2006)
 Lower distress (Barak & Dolev-Cohen, 2006)
 Receiving Messages
 Lower levels of distress and stress
(Barak & Dolev-Cohen, 2006; Wright, 2002)
 Observing the Exchange of Support

Supportive Communication and Sense
of Virtual Community
 Members’ feelings of identity,
belonging and attachment with
others in their online group (Blanchard &
Markus, 2004)
 Social Exchange Theory (Goulder, 1960)
 Hypothesis 1: Supportive
communication is associated with
stronger SOVC

SOVC and Health Outcomes
 SOC in FtF community is related to
 satisfaction with and commitment to the
community (Burroughs & Eby, 1998)
 active involvement in community activities and
problem-focused coping behavior (McMillan & Chavis,
1986)
 lower stress (Cowman et al, 2004; Ferrari et al, 2007)
 improved well-being (Farrell et al, 2004)
 increased quality of life (Kennett & Payne, 2005)
 improved experiences (Ferrari et al, 2007)

SOVC and Health Outcomes
 Hypothesis 2: Perceived stress is
associated with more health
symptoms
 Hypothesis 3: SOVC is associated
with fewer health symptoms
 Hypothesis 4: SOVC moderates the
relationship between stress and
health symptoms

Method

Participants
 N=122 women from 2 VCs
 Age: 21-43 (M = 29) years.
 Ethnicity: 97.5% Caucasian
 Activity Levels:
 regularly read messages (M = 5.0)
 posted messages (M = 3.84)
 started new threads (M = 3.09)

Procedure & Research Context
 Procedure
 online anonymous survey
 link on message board
 Research Context
 Unique features of infertility groups

Measures
 Supportive Communication (modified from
Carver, Scheier, and Weintraub, 1989)
 Emotional Support (8 items)
 how often participants provided, received,
and observed exchange of emotional
support within VC
 Informational Support (9 items)
 how often participants provided, received,
and observed exchange of informational
support within VC

Measures
 SOVC (18 items) (Blanchard, 2007)
 Perceived Stress (14 items) (Cohen et al,
1983)
 Health Symptoms (54 items) (Pennebaker,
1982)

Results and Discussion

Supportive Communication as Predictors
of SOVC
Model B S.E. β
SOVC
Providing Emotional Support .04 .11 .05
Providing Informational Support .14 .11 .20
Receiving Emotional Support .09 .11 .12
Receiving Informational Support .14 .11 .18
Observing Emotional Support .71 .25 .46**
Observing Informational Support -.49 .23 -.34**
Note. R2 = .35, * p < .05, ** p < .01.

SOVC and Stress as Predictors of
Health Symptoms
Model B S.E. β
Step 1
SOVC -1.31 .78 -.15
Stress 2.50 .78 .28**
Step 2
SOVC -1.61 .79 -.18*
Stress 2.81 .79 .32**
SOVC X Stress -1.71 .90 -.17t
Note. Step 1: R =.10, p < .10, R Δ for Step 2 = .02, p = .06;
t
p = .06, * p < .05, ** p < .01.

Results: SOVC and Stress as
Predictors of Health Symptoms
SOVC
19
high
low
18
17
Symptoms
16
15
14
13
12
low high
Stress

Discussion
 Observing the exchange of support in the
VC associated with SOVC (Hypothesis 1)
 Higher levels of stress associated with
more physical health symptoms (Hypothesis
2)
 SOVC was negatively related to health
symptoms (Hypothesis 3)
 Strong SOVC buffered the relationship
between stress and health symptoms
(Hypothesis 4)

Implications
 Women dealing with infertility should be
encouraged to seek online support groups
 Administrators should facilitate
 expressions of emotional support
 members’ ability to see the exchange of
support
 Importance of SOVC in online health
communities

Limitations
 Inability to firmly establish causal
direction
 Self-report data
 Homogeneous sample