Illness‑community spiral harms

Supportive online communities for chronic conditions can unintentionally create a self‑reinforcing ‘spiral of suffering’: continuous symptom monitoring, adversarial collective troubleshooting, and attention economies convert hope into chronic distress and diagnostic entrenchment. This dynamic mediates patient behaviour (health‑seeking, treatment adherence), clinician‑patient trust, and public‑health demand for services. — Recognising and regulating the harm‑amplifying potential of patient communities matters for platform moderation, clinical guidance, mental‑health services and how policymakers design support and funding for chronic illness care.