Understanding the Temporality of Informal Caregivers’ Sense-Making on Conflicts and Life-Changing Events through Online Health Communities

Informal caregivers perform an important role in taking care of family members with chronic disease. Informal caregivers’ mental health can be negatively impacted by life-changing events (e.g., patients’ diagnosis, care transitioning, etc.). This leads the caregiver to suffer from interpersonal and intrapersonal conflicts, causing a sense of disorientation and escalating malaise. In this study, we investigated informal caregivers’ experiences of facing conflicts and life-changing events by qualitatively analyzing the data from online health communities. We categorized conflicts using a psychodynamic framework. We further looked at the interplay of life-changing events and conflicts and how this leads to caregivers' sense-making and decisions to mediate conflicts. We also found that online health communities provide support by helping caregivers interpret and navigate conflicts and raising awareness of the temporal resolution of life-changing events. We conclude this study by discussing designing online health communities to better support such practice.