  Online Health Communities (OHCs) are known to provide substantial emotional
and informational support to patients and family caregivers facing
life-threatening diagnoses like cancer and other illnesses, injuries, or
chronic conditions. Yet little work explores how OHCs facilitate other vital
forms of social support, especially instrumental support. We partner with
CaringBridge.org---a prominent OHC for journaling about health crises---to
complete a two-phase study focused on instrumental support. Phase one involves
a content analysis of 641 CaringBridge updates. Phase two is a survey of 991
CaringBridge users. Results show that patients and family caregivers diverge
from their support networks in their preferences for specific instrumental
support types. Furthermore, ``prayer support'' emerged as the most prominent
support category across both phases. We discuss design implications to
accommodate divergent preferences and to expand the instrumental support
network. We also discuss the need for future work to empower family caregivers
and to support spirituality.
