ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the importance of online patient communities and forums as sites for both information and data exchange. Patient communities are a phenomenon that predates the Web, since the desire of consumers and patients to seek support from each other is a very old one. Madara too describes the origins of patient communities in BBS. The benefits of virtual patient communities remained unclear in large part because no researchers had focused on the communities as interventions on their own. A search of PubMed MEDLINE on January 1, 2020, reveals 907 studies of patient communities published since 1998, focusing on diagnoses from hidradenitis suppurativa to breast cancer. Caregivers have an important role to play in patient communities, too. The challenge in patient communities is to understand the difference between questions that require this context-based assistance - informational support - and questions that require fact-based answers.
