How Reading a Health Blog Can Benefit Your Life
Health blogs are online platforms that allow individuals to voice their experiences and opinions on a range of health issues. They can also be used to promote healthcare products and services.
Research suggests that reading patient-created content may increase the intention to perform preventative health actions such as scheduling skin checks or doctor appointments. This impact was found regardless of a person’s perceived risk.
1. It Helps You Stay Connected With Others
Blogging is a great way to stay connected with others who are going through the same thing you are. It can also be a way to get support from people around the world.
Some bloggers choose to share their stories with a select group of friends and family, while others make them public so that people can read them. Studies have shown that writing a blog can be therapeutic for people dealing with illness.
The good news is that blogging can help patients stay connected with their healthcare providers, too. For example, a patient might write about an interesting new piece of medical equipment or provide FAQ posts that answer frequently asked questions. The web device is optimized for various devices, including desktops, tablets, and you may also click the website https://zorzdans.com/ to read more , smartphones, ensuring accessibility from anywhere, anytime.
One study found that when medical professionals use blogs to communicate with patients, they are more likely to see an increase in preventative health intentions. This is because the blogs are easy to understand and informative, and they are more effective than other online sources of information.
2. It Helps You Learn New Things
As you read, your brain creates neural networks that help you retain information. This makes it easier to learn new things, especially when you’re reading a health blog. Health blogs provide step-by-step tips and detailed explanations of specific medical procedures, which helps patients understand what’s going on.
Studies have previously shown that medical blogs can improve doctor-patient relationships, and help reduce patient isolation. However, little is known about how readers interpret these blogs and whether they actually take preventative health actions as a result of their reading.
In 2 scenario-based experimental studies, participants were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 sample cancer blogs (a personal narrative, a story with statistical data, or a general story about
melanoma). The blogs were rated on 7-point bipolar scales for being easy to read and understand, informative, interesting, emotional, and well written. The results from both experiments showed that the blog type significantly influenced intention to take protective health behaviors, but only through an indirect effect on perceived barriers.
3. It Helps You Stay Motivated
Health and wellness blogs can be a great way to motivate you. By reading about others who have overcome huge obstacles in life you can be reminded that if they can do it, so can you.
This can be especially helpful if you are feeling discouraged or overwhelmed. It can be easy to fall into a cycle of self-doubt when you are not making progress on your goals or feeling as though they are just too difficult.
Studies show that reading a health blog can help you stay motivated by increasing your intentions to take preventative medical actions (scheduling a skin check or doctor appointment). The study tested 3 different types of wellness blogs, including a personal narrative, a general cancer story, and a statistics condition that included data and statistics about melanoma. All of the blog excerpts produced greater intention to take health-related action, but the personal narrative and statistical blog conditions were more effective at driving intentions than the control condition.
4. It Helps You Make Better Decisions
Research from 3 studies using both experimental scenarios and qualitative surveys of real blog readers reveals that reading medical blogs has a clear impact on health-related intentions. In particular, both personal narrative and statistical blogs were found to influence the reader’s intention to take future preventative health actions such as self-monitoring skin or asking their doctor about their risk for a certain disease. In addition, perceived risk did not mediate this relationship, contrary to some prior research.
Study 1 used a single-factor design to randomly assign participants to one of three different blog excerpt conditions: a personal narrative, a general cancer story, or a statistics condition that included data and facts about a specific disease (e.g., melanoma). The blogs were all evaluated for readability, understandability, and emotional content by participants. The results showed that the statistical blog was most effective in driving readers’ intentions to perform future preventative health actions. In addition, the statistics-oriented blog reduced participants’ estimates of locus of control attributed to chance.
