This article deals with online support groups for people with mental health problems, focusing on the role of emotional and informational supportive communication as well as motives for use as factors of individual empowerment. Theoretisation of the relationships between these concepts resulted in two hypotheses and a research question, which were empirically analysed using survey data collected on a non-representative sample of users of Nebojse.si, an online support group for people with depression and anxiety problems. Analyses of the hypotheses showed that emotional supportive communication had a significant positive, while informational support communication had, surprisingly, a significant negative influence on empowerment. The results regarding motives showed a higher degree of individual empowerment among users who had joined Nebojse.si with informational-instrumental and leisure motives.
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