Supportive communication patterns among informal caregivers of older adults on Reddit: A content analysis.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

Informal caregivers of older adults often turn to online communities, such as Reddit, to seek social support but not all support-seeking behaviors yield the desired outcomes. This study investigates how support-seeking strategies employed by informal caregivers of older adults in a selection of posts on Reddit, including directness and emotional expressions, elicit others' textual and non-textual social support.

Methods

We collected 761 posts and 3504 comments from three subreddits for informal caregivers of older adults using the Reddit application programming interface. Through quantitative content analysis, we examined support-seeking strategies in posts and types of social support in comments. The Kruskal-Wallis test and binary logistic regressions were used to

SUBMITTER: Huang NM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12464437 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jan-Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature