Mining User-Generated Content to Identify Social Support in Chinese Online Smoking Cessation Community

Abstract

Purpose/Significance: This study on the social support behavior of online smoking cessation community users can provide support for community management personnel to guide user behavior, enrich and deepen the functions of online smoking cessation communities and improve user stickiness, and also provides effective basis for public health workers to develop smoking cessation strategy in online communities. Method/Process: All the posts published in Baidu JieYanBa from August 1, 2018 to October 31, 2018 were gained. 2758 posts from core users were selected. Theme coding was adopted to divide the stage of smoking cessation of the poster. Keywords extraction and co-keywords network analysis were carried out to identify the types of social support and analyze its similarities and differences in different smoking cessation stages. Results: With the development of the smoking cessation stage, the proportion of emotional support and information support is on the rise. Emotional support is the main theme of social support in the preparatory stage, the action stage and the maintenance stage. The types and proportions of social support change regularly at different stages of smoking cessation.