Connecting for well-being: a role-based network analysis of online mental health communities

Ezgi Akar

Behaviour and Information Technology, 2025, vol. 44, issue 18, 4566-4580

Abstract: This paper attempts to fill two gaps: (i) offers a method to empirically identify and classify user roles based on patterns of topic engagement within online mental health groups, and (ii) reveals the influence of these roles on information dissemination in these virtual environments.We analysed 8,580 posts out of 90,626 from the r/MentalHealth subreddit. Our approach identified 12 main discussion topics: suicidal behaviour, mental well-being, emotional experience, interpersonal connections, education, sleeping, video gaming, professional life, depression and anxiety, cognitive recall, parenting, and panic attacks. Employing network theory, we obtained a topic-user network, including 8,962 relationships, based on the topics discussed. After a network projection process, we detected four subgroups in a user-user network of 7,564 users and 12,717,205 relationships. We classified user roles as life jugglers, mindful wellness seekers, resilient individuals, and emotional connectors. We investigated these users’ structural positions (‘centralities’) to assess their influence on information flow in the network. While wellness seekers, resilient individuals, and emotional connectors demonstrated that they played a vital role in disseminating their knowledge and experiences within the network, life jugglers did not exhibit any responsibility in information dissemination.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1080/0144929X.2025.2484393

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