TY - JOUR T1 - Structure and dynamics of online patients’ communities: the case of Asthma UK and BLF online fora JF - European Respiratory Journal JO - Eur Respir J DO - 10.1183/1393003.congress-2017.OA3202 VL - 50 IS - suppl 61 SP - OA3202 AU - Anna De Simoni AU - Sagar Joglekar AU - Stephanie JC Taylor AU - Anita Patel AU - Robbie Duschinsky AU - Neil Coulson AU - Chris Griffiths AU - Pietro Panzarasa AU - Nishanth Sastry AU - Amrutha Anand AU - Matt Jameson Evans Y1 - 2017/09/01 UR - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/50/suppl_61/OA3202.abstract N2 - Background: There is evidence that taking part in online patients' communities facilitates disease self-management and improves people's illness experience. However, little is known about the structure and evolution of online patients’ communities.Aim: The aim of this work was exploring this knowledge gap.Methods: We conducted network analysis of anonymised data from two UK online patients’ communities, Asthma UK (2006-2016) and British Lung Foundation (BLF, 2012-2016).Results: Activity grew over time in both communities. The time between posts followed temporal patterns consistent with symptoms exacerbations and disease trajectories of the underlying conditions. Both communities formed of a “giant component”, i.e. a connected subset of mutually reachable users. Removal of 1% and 5% of the most connected users (super-users) in the Asthma UK and BLF fora, respectively, made the giant component collapse, showing that the network was held together by very few individuals. Well-connected users tended to avoid each other and communicate with users who were not equally well-connected.Conclusions: This is the first study to examine the structure and dynamics of online patients’ communities, showing the emergence of important structural properties related to the way users communicate and engage in online activities. Further research is needed to explore tie formation mechanisms and network determinants of effectiveness of online engagement with respect to health-related outcomes. ER -