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Instagram offers an
opportunity to promote improvements in health care services, clinical practices
and public awareness among FM patients.
A recently published study in 'Qualitative Health Research' elucidated that Instagram encourages the development of a community by promoting the intimate and supportive interactions about the illness and helps create personalized day-to-day narratives understandable to all.
The diversity of interactions in this community is based on the norms of trust, acceptance, and reciprocity.
Fibromyalgia is a chronic and contested illness causing widespread pain and fatigue. The present-day social media applications have become an efficient resource enabling the individuals with fibromyalgia to interact in a virtual community dedicated to the illness.
Berard and Smith explored how such a community develops and maintains itself on Instagram and the methods of creating social capital for its users. The data was based on Instagram posts and open-ended questionnaires completed by patients suffering from fibromyalgia who use this application. The study investigated the different ways in which users shared their experiences with fibromyalgia, the management of its symptoms, and the issues faced by them in accessing health care systems via the content analysis and semiotic methodology. The application effectively facilitates the emergence of a social network based on illness and where users can share knowledge and help one another.
"Future research needs to consider exploring the fibromyalgia communities
in other Internet applications like Pinterest, the Apple App etc.",
mentioned the authors of this study.
Qualitative Health Research
Post Your Journey: Instagram as a Support Community for People With Fibromyalgia
Ashley A. Berard, André P. Smith
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