摘要：Objective: The research investigated the relationship between biomedical literature and blogosphere discussions about diabetes in order to explore the role of Web 2.0 technologies in disseminating health information. Are blogs that cite biomedical literature perceived as more trustworthy in the blogosphere, as measured by their popularity and interconnections with other blogs? Methods: Web mining, social network analysis, and content analysis were used to analyze a large sample of blogs to determine how often biomedical literature is referenced in blogs on diabetes and how these blogs interconnect with others in the health blogosphere. Results: Approximately 10% of the 3,005 blogs analyzed cite at least 1 article from the dataset of 2,246 articles. The most influential blogs, as measured by in-links, are written by diabetes patients and tend not to cite biomedical literature. In general, blogs that do not cite biomedical literature tend not to link to blogs that do. Conclusions: There is a large communication gap between health professional and personal diabetes blogs. Personal blogs do not tend to link to blogs by health professionals. Diabetes patients may be turning to the blogosphere for reasons other than authoritative information. They may be seeking emotional support and exchange of personal stories. Highlights Networks of blogs relating to diabetes care tend to be in distinct realms: those that cite authoritative biomedical literature and those that do not cite such literature. Bloggers who are not health professionals may be unaware of the availability of biomedical literature recrafted for a lay audience, such as via MedlinePlus. Implications Biomedical literature is important for health decisions. Discussions in the blogosphere that may influence decisions by patients may not be drawing on the literature. Diabetes patients and their caregivers' blogs connect with each other in the blogosphere. This may be more for emotional than for informational support. Health communicators and information professionals might work more closely together to aid diabetes patients by enabling blogging, some of which might help interpret recent biomedical literature or link directly to articles in MedlinePlus.
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