"""""""" Rural Chronically Ill Women: Online Support Network"""""""" is an innovative multidisciplinary telecommunication intervention project that provides a research-based model for conducting computer support groups and educational guidance via the computer and World Wide Web. The overall goal of this longitudinal telehealth intervention is to enhance the potential for rural chronically ill women to adapt better to their chronic illness. The computer-based intervention will assist rural women to experience the benefits of an on-line self-help support group, teach them the computer literacy skills necessary to find and discriminately evaluate health information available on the WWW, and provide health-related learning experiences. Engaging in this computer-based intervention (support and education) will enhance the women's potential to successfully adapt to their long-term illness. Indicators of the potential for adaptation include psychosocial status (social support, self-efficacy, self-esteem, empowerment, stress, depression, and loneliness), computer literacy skills, and health knowledge. The study will employ a three-cohort design: a mediated intervention group (www access, expert-guided health teaching modules, module discussion, self-help support), an independent intervention group (WWW access, self-guided health teaching modules) and a non-intervention group.
The specific aims are to: (a) assess the differences in psychosocial status among the mediated intervention group, the independent intervention group, and the non-intervention group; (b) assess the differences in computer literacy skills and health knowledge among the mediated intervention group, the independent intervention group, and the non-intervention group; (c) analyze the computer exchanges for insights to explicate the complex process of adapting to chronic illness within the rural context. It is hypothesized that the mediated intervention group will have more positive scores on the psychosocial status, computer literacy skills, and health knowledge measures than either of the other two groups. This computer-based intervention model has the potential to advance practice in the care of people with more than one chronic illness or to populations with multiple co-morbidities in urban and rural areas and can be adapted to any number of different kinds of groups, e.g., care providers, low-income populations.
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