A health blog is a platform for authors to contribute their research, opinion or personal experiences with a particular healthcare related concern. Many hospitals and companies including insurance providers publish their own branded health blogs. Two scenario-based experiments and a nonexperimental survey of real, self-described medical blog readers revealed that reading these blogs produces intentions to take preventative health actions. These effects were mediated by perceived barriers, but not by susceptibility or severity.

Educates You

Many medical professionals and health organizations write blogs to educate patients about various health issues. These blogs share information on everything from new procedures and advances in medical equipment to tips for maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

Bloggers can also use their blogs to discuss the emotional aspects of a condition. Several studies have found that reading medical blogs can help readers understand the impact of a condition on their lives and others. Some of these blogs may be emotionally difficult to read, especially if a patient’s health has declined or their treatment options have been unsuccessful. One study presented participants with 3 different blog excerpts from cancer patients, each designed to evoke an emotional response: a personal narrative, a statistic-based blog post, and a control condition with no excerpt. Participants who read the personal stories of other people with a disease reported higher intentions to take preventative health actions than those who read posts focusing on statistics, and this effect was independent of participants’ own perceived risk or beliefs about their susceptibility to the illness.

Inspires You

Health blogs give readers a glimpse into the lives of people they can relate to. Many bloggers write to share their personal experiences or offer hope and encouragement. Others write to report on medical research or discuss their own treatment paths. Studies of cancer patient blogs have found that writing their own blog helps patients find meaning, feel a sense of belonging and stave off feelings of isolation.

One of the key ingredients to a successful health and wellness blog is to use plain language. Technical jargon or long sentences can confuse and intimidate. Try to keep your reader’s attention from the beginning by grabbing them with an interesting headline or statement. A few years ago, researchers used a two-part experimental scenario to test the effects of different blog types on readers’ intentions to take preventative health actions. Across the 2 experiments, reading a patient blog was associated with an increased desire to schedule a doctor’s appointment or perform a self-exam such as a skin check. To understand the direction of the Health Blog, people can refer to the following this link.

Encourages You

Many health blogs have the ability to capture a reader’s attention from the very first line. This is due to their snazzy headlines and eye-catching graphics. Often, they feature powerful quotes from people who have overcome incredible obstacles. This can inspire readers to pursue their dreams and not give up.

Reading a health blog can also motivate you to learn more about the condition that a blogger is talking about. In fact, this is necessary in order to keep your neurons stimulated and active. This is important because it ensures that you’re able to retain new information and perform better in your life. In addition to this, reading a health blog can help you stay motivated by reminding you of the importance of taking preventative actions against your health condition. This is because research from 3 studies that used both experimental scenarios and qualitative surveys of real blog readers indicates that reading patient-created content influences their intentions to take future preventative health actions such as scheduling skin checks or asking their doctor about their disease risk, and this impact occurs regardless of the reader’s perceived risk.

Helps You Stay Motivated

When you read a health blog, you are reminded that if someone else can do something, you can too. This can help you stay motivated and keep working towards your goals even when the going gets tough. Research shows that readers of medical blogs take preventative health actions as a result of reading them. In two experimental scenarios, the type of blog affected these intentions (e.g., skin check, doctor appointment), but not the reader’s perception of disease risk or beliefs.

In one of the studies, participants rated the blog excerpts as being easy to read and understand, well-written, informative, and emotionally stimulating. However, the effects of the different blog conditions on the measures of health intentions were independent of these evaluations. This corroborates prior research that blog format may influence health intentions but not the reader’s perceived disease risk or beliefs. This research also adds to this previous finding by demonstrating that the effect of the type of blog on preventative health intentions is independent of the reader’s evaluation of the condition and the blogger’s credibility.