Measurement tools of online social capital among adult population in health studies: a scoping review
Abstract
Background: There is an increasing interest in the impact of social capital (SC) on health of older people. However, the development of communication and information technologies (ICTs) made the tools used to measure offline SC ineffective. We aimed to provide an overview of theory-based comprehensive online SC measurements among the general adult population and compare their assessed aspects and psychometric properties.
Methods: We performed a PRISMA-ScR-compliant scoping review in Medline, Embase, Web of Science, ProQuest, and CINAHL databases and included studies published between January 2000 and September 2024 concerning the development or validation of the questionnaire methods assessing online SC. We included studies conducted in the adult population from any country focused on health or directed to general population. Reference to an explicit theory of SC was used to stratify the eligible studies into those analysed in the present analysis and those reported elsewhere.
Results: The search identified 13,072 records, of which 8042 unique records remained after duplicate removal and underwent title and abstract screening. Following full-text assessment of 425 articles, 86 studies met the inclusion criteria and 27 were analysed in the scoping review. Most of scales are adaptation of the measures for assessing SC as a whole. There is a lack of scales directed specifically to the older populations. A few tools are directed to general population, but none of them was validated in the health context.
Conclusions: The results indicate the need for development of the measurement tool to assess online SC which will be useful for population studies in public health and epidemiology, especially directed to older adults. The review protocol was registered at Open Science Framework on August 25, 2023 ( https://osf.io/t385d ).
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BibTeX
@article{sekula2026measurement,
title = {{Measurement tools of online social capital among adult population in health studies: a scoping review}},
author = {Paulina Sekuła and Natalie Jagło and Michalina Gajdzica and Monika Brzyska and Aleksandra Piłat-Kobla and Dawid Storman and Paweł Jemioło and Julia Ząber and Katarzyna Salamon and Magdalena Koperny and Małgorzata M. Bała and Katarzyna Zawisza},
journal = {BMC Public Health},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1186/s12889-026-29701-2},
url = {https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12889-026-29701-2},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Measurement tools of online social capital among adult population in health studies: a scoping review
AU - Paulina Sekuła
AU - Natalie Jagło
AU - Michalina Gajdzica
AU - Monika Brzyska
AU - Aleksandra Piłat-Kobla
AU - Dawid Storman
AU - Paweł Jemioło
AU - Julia Ząber
AU - Katarzyna Salamon
AU - Magdalena Koperny
AU - Małgorzata M. Bała
AU - Katarzyna Zawisza
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/21
JO - BMC Public Health
DO - 10.1186/s12889-026-29701-2
UR - https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12889-026-29701-2
AB - Background: There is an increasing interest in the impact of social capital (SC) on health of older people. However, the development of communication and information technologies (ICTs) made the tools used to measure offline SC ineffective. We aimed to provide an overview of theory-based comprehensive online SC measurements among the general adult population and compare their assessed aspects and psychometric properties. Methods: We performed a PRISMA-ScR-compliant scoping review in Medline, Embase, Web of Science, ProQuest, and CINAHL databases and included studies published between January 2000 and September 2024 concerning the development or validation of the questionnaire methods assessing online SC. We included studies conducted in the adult population from any country focused on health or directed to general population. Reference to an explicit theory of SC was used to stratify the eligible studies into those analysed in the present analysis and those reported elsewhere. Results: The search identified 13,072 records, of which 8042 unique records remained after duplicate removal and underwent title and abstract screening. Following full-text assessment of 425 articles, 86 studies met the inclusion criteria and 27 were analysed in the scoping review. Most of scales are adaptation of the measures for assessing SC as a whole. There is a lack of scales directed specifically to the older populations. A few tools are directed to general population, but none of them was validated in the health context. Conclusions: The results indicate the need for development of the measurement tool to assess online SC which will be useful for population studies in public health and epidemiology, especially directed to older adults. The review protocol was registered at Open Science Framework on August 25, 2023 ( https://osf.io/t385d ).
SN - 1471-2458
ER -