Analysis of Australian Bariatric Surgery Online Support Website Features

A 2026 study by Rachael Stewart identified and evaluated English-language online social support (OSS) websites for Australians seeking bariatric surgery. The research analyzed 1,210 websites, with eight meeting inclusion criteria for feature appraisal. The dataset is a 45.7 KB document describing the study methodology and findings.

Use Cases

• Benchmarking website features for online health communities based on the identified best practices.
• Studying the availability and characteristics of condition-specific online social support based on the described search and appraisal process.
• Informing the design of digital peer-support resources for bariatric surgery patients based on the evaluated website features.

Strengths

• Clear research scope focused on publicly accessible online social support for a specific medical procedure and geographic region.
• Study methodology is described, including the screening of 1,210 websites down to eight for analysis.
• Released under a permissive CC-BY-4.0 license for reuse.

Limitations

• The dataset is a 45.7 KB document (DOCX), not a structured data file of website features or user posts.
• Row count and column-level data are unknown; the content is a textual analysis.
• The data reflects a specific snapshot in time; website features and availability may have changed since the study.

Provenance

Source

figshare, authored by Rachael Stewart.

Collection Method

Research involved identifying publicly accessible English-language websites via two search strategies and appraising their features.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-01 23:15:57.

Geography

Australia