Sociability aspects in e-health community: A review

Online communities are all about social interaction. There are places for support, entertainment, information, knowledge sharing and even a way to interact with millions of people all over the world. An e-health community serves as a medium for patients and survivors to support each other and to improve their lives as patients need more emotional support to struggle with their disease. Technical accuracy alone is not enough to make online communities successful - they must also focus on the social aspects. Previous studies have highlighted the role of sociability in many research areas. This paper will discuss social software narrowing to online communities; summarize the sociability aspects that have been applied in various research areas and particularly in the e-health community.