The prevalence of dementia is higher in Hispanics and African Americans than non-Hispanic Whites. Moreover, dementia caregivers often experience loneliness as well decreased health status. The expansion of social media use among Hispanics and African Americans, particularly Twitter - a short message service - offers great promise for improving social support. This study aims to evaluate changes of discussion topics, sentiment and networking styles (i.e., number of followers) among anonymous followers of our two Twitter networks; the African American/Black dementia caregiver group and the Hispanic dementia caregiver group.
The study will utilize Twitter networks to post a daily message for dementia caregivers for a year, and set up a monthly group chat.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
NON_RANDOMIZED
Purpose
SUPPORTIVE_CARE
Masking
NONE
Enrollment
966
This group will be asked to follow and use (i.e., retweet, reply, like) our Hispanic Twitter network for social support
This group will be asked to follow and use (i.e., retweet, reply, like) our African American Twitter network for social support.
Columbia University Irving Medical Center
New York, New York, United States
Number of Participants Who do Not Engage in Twitter Activities
Macro level: The number of participants who do not engage in Twitter activities (i.e., retweet, reply, like, post) within the Twitter network for dementia caregivers
Time frame: 12 months
Emotional Valence Score
Emotional valence (macro level) detected from text data (e.g., "This is so helpful": emotion score +4; "I am sad": emotion score -6). Emotional valence score ranges from -10 to +10; -10 indicates negative valence and +10 indicates positive valence.
Time frame: 12 months
Number of Auto-detected Small Groups
Meso level: number of small group automatically detected based on Twitter activities (i.e., retweet); for example 0 means no small-group activity detected, 7 small groups mean seven distinct cliques/grouping activities detected where the users are communicating, supporting and responding within our Twitter network.
Time frame: 12 months
Percentage of Balanced Triads
Micro level: % balanced communication triad, 2 or 3 people responding and communicating with equal or similar frequency; 0 reflects non-optimal communication indicating domination, avoidance or ignorance. 8 means there are 8% triads who maintain healthy communication.
Time frame: 12 months
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