Craniofacial Surgery-Related Hashtag Utilisation on Instagram

Abstract

Background: Patients, parents, and carers are increasingly using social media to access and contribute to health information. There are currently 3.484 billion active social media users. Instagram is a primarily visual social media platform for sharing photographs and videos with currently over one billion monthly active users. Limited research has investigated the use of Instagram in healthcare contexts including plastic surgery, and in the treatment of specific conditions, such as fibromyalgia and scoliosis. This study aimed to investigate the use of Instagram in relation to craniofacial surgery. Methods: The authors investigated the use of 12 Instagram craniofacial surgery-related hashtags. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected for each of the “top” nine posts associated with each hashtag. Duplicate posts, posts not in English and those not relevant to craniofacial surgery were excluded. Thematic analysis was then used to qualitatively evaluate the captions and comments of each of the nine “top” posts associated with each hashtag. Results: A total number of 151,738 posts were identified using the 12 hashtags queried in the present study, with #craniofacial being the most popular hashtag (87% of posts). Parents (n = 25, 33%) and surgeons (n = 25, 33%) were responsible for the majority of posts. A heterogenous group were responsible for the remaining 34% of posts. Results indicated that parents and surgeons posted significantly different images (chi-squared with Yates correlation is 25.0519, P < 0.00001). Parents’ posts were predominantly images of their child/patients (n = 24) compared to posts about patients by surgeons (n = 6). Posts by surgeons were predominantly images of professionals (n = 14) compared to images of professionals posted by parents (n = 1). Results of qualitative analysis of captions of posts indicated a significant difference in themes that emerged between parents and surgeons; with surgeons largely using Instagram for information giving, and parents for sharing of experiences (chi-square (n = 108) = 40.83, P < 0.00001). There was a significant difference (two-tailed t test, P = 0.002) in engagement (measured by the number of likes on posts) on posts by parents (mean = 3778) compared to posts by surgeons (mean = 135.4) Conclusions: Results indicate that craniofacial-surgery related posts on Instagram provide a medium to allow individuals and families with rare disorders to connect and share their experiences. The use of Instagram to share information about craniofacial abnormalities via Instagram has the potential to be used by healthcare professionals to educate and support patients and families.

#PRS: A Study of Plastic Surgery Trends With the Rise of Instagram

“…The current literature highlights the increased use of social media to share and connect individuals who are interested or who require procedures in specialties such as general surgery, craniofacial surgery, gynecological surgery, orthopedic surgery, and neurosurgery. 11–15 As of recent date, the spread of plastic surgery procedures through Instagram profiles, hashtags, and search terms has gained popularity as a valid channel for promotion. In this study, we hypothesize that as a result of increased medical marketing on Instagram, there is an increase in public interest in plastic surgery elective procedures.…”

Altmetric Analysis of the Most Mentioned Articles Online in the Contemporary Craniofacial Surgery Literature

“…Such activities include creating false accounts and purchasing “likes” or “tweets”. Finally, AAS fails to capture activity from social media platforms such as Instagram (Menlo Park, CA) and TikTok (Culver City, CA), which have become increasingly integral to the dissemination of information pertaining to plastic surgery 31–33. Since these data are proprietary, their collection was particularly difficult, provided the scope of this investigation.…”

“…Finally, AAS fails to capture activity from social media platforms such as Instagram (Menlo Park, CA) and TikTok (Culver City, CA), which have become increasingly integral to the dissemination of information pertaining to plastic surgery. [31][32][33] Since these data are proprietary, their collection was particularly difficult, provided the scope of this investigation. AAS, therefore, should be utilized in conjunction with traditional bibliometrics to achieve a more complete understanding of research impact.…”

#clearaligners and social media: An in‐depth analysis of clear aligners' content on Instagram

“…Within this dataset, we screened the top ten posts associated with each queried hashtag at one time and one geographical location. Although a similar strategy has been used in previous literature, 13,18,30 We recognize that there may be a potential bias in the hashtags we selected.…”

“…Previous studies have revealed that more than one-third of educational content shared on social media concerning cleft lip and/or palate exhibited poor quality, and approximately 80% of tweets authored by laypersons employing keywords such as 'plastic surgery' or #plasticsurgery were found to be factually inaccurate. 17,18 The content of orthodontic-related posts has been investigated on different social media platforms. [19][20][21][22][23] We previously explored the benefits of using Twitter in disseminating orthodontic clinical and research information.…”