Personality, Attitudes, and Behaviors Predicting Perceived Benefit in Online Support Groups for Caregivers: Mixed Methods Study.
Athena Milios, Ting Xiong, Karen McEwan and 1 others
PMID 35980741WHAT IT FOUND
Among caregivers of children with neurodevelopmental disorders, more outgoing parents reported greater benefit from closed Facebook support groups.
Other personality traits, attitudes, and past posting did not. Many described low engagement and weak relevance as limiting the groups.
Key findings
01More outgoing caregivers reported greater perceived benefit from the online support group, accounting for 12.5% of the differences in reported benefit.
02Agreeableness, neuroticism, positive attitudes toward online support groups, and typical past online support group use did not significantly predict reported benefit.
03The most common negative theme in open-ended responses was lack of engagement, activity, and interaction, especially from moderators, reported by 27 participants.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
The caregivers were also receiving another intervention, so perceived benefit from the online group may have been influenced by that program. The sample was 81 caregivers, all female, and only 81 of 160 eligible participants completed the survey. The author-developed surveys had not been validated before this study. The personality measure was weak for agreeableness and neuroticism, with internal consistency 0.52 and 0.43. The groups were closed Facebook groups, so the findings may not apply to public forums or other websites. The design was observational and secondary, so it cannot show that the group caused benefit or that extraversion caused greater benefit.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that these online support groups improve caregiver well-being or that extraversion causes benefit. The study measured perceived benefit after a 2-month group embedded in another caregiver intervention, so the effect of the group alone cannot be separated.