Table 6.

Summary and illustration of domains and themes from the thematic analysis.

Domain and theme		Prevalencea	Illustrative quotations
Social similarity
	I am not the only one going through this	Typical	“Every time I realize ‘that’s me, that’s me! I’m going through that, that’s me!’ I can relate to so much of what’s on there.” [P1]
	Reduced isolation and loneliness	General	“All of a sudden, I’m in the flat on my own. And I have nobody to talk to...so the only thing I’ve got now, really, is Talking Point” [P5] “Before my son introduced me to that [Talking Point] I felt that I was on my own, even though, like I said, I have fantastic support from the help service and family and everything, it still, I still felt alone.” [P1]
	Normalizing	Typical	“I’m feeling like I want my dad to die, because I don’t want to see him go through this, and he’d be happier. And then you feel full of guilt, but you go on [to Talking Point], and you’re not the only one feeling that, or you’re not the only one that has felt that. And it makes you feel OK, normal.” [P3]
	Other users have experience and are therefore understanding	Typical	“And that is the great strength of it. Everybody on Talking Point has hands-on experience of dealing with dementia. And they make allowances for you, as they did for me.” [P5]
	Being able to share and let off steam	Typical	“If nothing else, it’s purely somewhere to let off steam.” [P4]
	Other users are worse off than I am	Typical	“My goodness, some people are dealing with some incredibly difficult situations...the situation we’ve got at the moment is not that difficult, we ought to be able to work around it.” [P7] “If I’m online and I’m reading other people’s posts and it’s quite distressing, you know, it’s quite easy to get distressed by it. So there are times when I just don’t go on it because I think, oh, it’s too painful, really, for me.” [P2]
	Not necessarily needing to post to benefit	General	“I think it’s more useful for me to read other people’s experiences.” [P6]
	Being able to give advice and support to other users	General	“It’s nice to be giving something back for the information that you’re getting. Or being able to support people as the support you receive.” [P3]. “It’s helpful in that you think, well, at least you know slightly more than someone else...It gives you a little bit of a boost to know that you can help somebody.” [P6]
Unique aspects
	I can ask questions and get the support that I might not be able to get, or might not want to get, elsewhere	Typical	“It’s not the kind of thing you would read in a leaflet that you pick up anywhere.” [P6] “Me personally, I don’t want to go sit in front of a—what would you go sit in front of?—a doctor, or a whoever. I don’t want to talk that way.” [P3]
	I can get information and advice that I would not know where else to get	Rare	“For someone who is totally ignorant of Alzheimer’s it has answered questions that I don’t know where I would have got the answer from.” [P6]
	Control	Typical	“I can go for months without bothering with it...I’ll utilize Talking Point when I need to. That maybe sounds a bit selfish, but I think that’s the advantage of it for me.” [P2] “You’re not seeing what it’s going to be like, you’re not seeing, you’re not hearing what it’s, you read what you want to read.” [P3] “I find it’s very easy to navigate to and from the titles to pick up things that might be useful.” [P7]
	Anonymity	Typical	“What I say there, I am opening up my heart to a very large extent and I am opening myself up and being totally honest about my feelings, and in some cases I wouldn’t want other members of my family, for example, to see some of these things...I wouldn’t want them to know exactly how I feel about certain things. Because when you are with other people you never really uncover your true self, do you?” [P5] “I suppose it’s when you’re sat at home thinking, ‘oh crikey’” you know, someone thinks that’s really awful. And it puts you in a bit of a panic, but I do think the moderators help because they come back with...solutions.” [P2]
	Immediate access and responses	Variant	“Now if I have something that is worrying me, I know that I have immediately got someone to talk it over with.” [P8]
	No time restrictions	Variant	“I think professional support is generally very time limited. And Talking Point isn’t time limited.” [P2]
	Geography is unimportant	Variant	“Particularly with me being mobile around the world as well as the country, it’s offered a support that I wouldn’t have had otherwise.” [P7]
New learning
	Practical learning and information	General	“Off Talking Point, someone said that animals are really good. So I got him a kitten...It was absolutely brilliant, and I thought ‘thank God for Talking Point’ because when my mum had to go out, he had the kitten to talk to, and the kitten to play with, and the cat even now.” [P3]
	Learning how the dementia might progress and what to expect	Typical	“That happened 3 times in the last few weeks, where [husband] hadn’t known where he was. And it has been stressful for him. But had I not known about it, I might have worried more. But having read about it [on Talking Point], I thought, mmm, yes, things do happen.” [P6] “When you’re reading it, you’re thinking, ‘I’ve got all this to come,’ but at the same time, you’re planning.” [P3] “I now look for the kind of problems that other people are having, that I am not having...And so that saddens me in a way that I possibly know more and am looking for things, and really I shouldn’t be.” [P6]
	Developing a better understanding of the person with dementia, and consequently becoming a better carer	General	“I don’t reason with her any more, I agree, and I can steer the conversation, and I know the kinds of things to say and the kinds of things to stay away from. And I think I’m a much better person for Talking Point. A much better companion for my wife, I know that.” [P5]

^aGeneral: theme applies to all or all but one of the participants (7-8); typical: theme applies to more than half of the participants (5-6); variant: theme applies to up to half of participants (3-4); rare: theme applies to 1 or 2 participants (1-2).