Social media for psychological support of patients with chronic non-infectious diseases: a systematic review.

Psychological symptoms are common among patients with chronic non-infectious diseases. Seldom treated properly, they are a major reason for a low quality of life. Chronic patients, like those who suffer from oncologic, psychiatric or heart diseases, could have difficulties in finding the right psychological support. One way to potentially reach anyone is using social media, which are often used by chronic patients for educational purposes about their diseases, or for finding psychological support from others with similar conditions. We wanted to study whether social media have been used in clinical research for administering psychological support to patients with chronic diseases. We studied the existing scientific literature doing a systematic review, finding that often social media were not used at their full potential. Peer-to-peer interactions were the most common interactions, chats rooms and forums the most common social media platforms. Participants were most commonly psychiatric and oncological patients. It is very important not to overlook powerful instruments like social media: they could be easily used by patients to empower themselves in managing their conditions. Social media could be an efficient way to easily provide chronic patients with psychological support either administered by health professionals, like psychotherapists, or by peers.