Narratives of experience of mental health and illness on healthtalk.org

Abstract

Online health information is increasingly popular and may bring both benefits and potential harm to users with mental health problems. The encouragement of harmful behaviour among this population is a particular concern. The website healthtalk.org provides the benefits of shared experience by publishing excerpts from rigorous research interviews with patients, contextualised with medical information. This article sets out evidence for the positive and negative effects of online mental health information and describes the methodology behind healthtalk.org , with an overview of the mental health information it provides and how it can benefit patients and health professionals.