Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2009, 6 497 The impact of emotional support and patient information sharing is thought to be quite positive but is not fully understood yet. PatientsLikeMe has conducted some research, finding that “patients who choose to explicitly share health data within a community may benefit from the process, helping patients engage in dialogues that may inform disease self-management [8].” Figure 3. PatientsLikeMe detailed profile examples for an HIV, MS, Parkinson’s Disease and Anxiety patient (left) and DailyStrength activity feed items (right). Physician Q&A A second service offered by several health social networks (examples: MedHelp, WellSphere, MDJunction, ehealth forum, iMedix, WeGoHealth) is the ability to pose questions to physicians. Questions and responses are usually displayed publicly unless the patient marks them as private. Posing questions may be free or fee-based, for example at MedHelp, it is $22 to pose a question to a physician directly and free to post a question in the medical communities where peers or professionals may respond. The websites generally have doctor profile pages where physicians complete information about their expertise, background and affiliations, with links to previous question responses on the site and possibly their medical blog entries (Figure 4). Figure 4. Example of a MedHelp physician homepage.