Evaluation of Parental Perspectives and Concerns About Pediatric Tonsillectomy in Social Media

Abstract

Importance: Tonsillectomy is common in children, but little is known about parental preferences and values concerning this surgery. Social media offers a novel opportunity to evaluate parent understanding and experience of care. Objective: We systematically evaluate posts in a well-known social media site to identify parent perspectives about tonsillectomy in children that may not be apparent in a routine clinical encounter. Design: In this mixed methods analysis, we searched Twitter© for posts (“tweets”) from 2008-2017 written by parents about their child’s tonsillectomy. We applied modified grounded theory to develop a coding taxonomy to classify these tweets. Two reviewers assessed tweets for thematic synthesis and classification. Tweets were quantified, and descriptive statistics were obtained for each theme. Setting: The posts on the social media site www.twitter.com. Participants: A sample of over 700 adult American parents of children who received or will receive a tonsillectomy and posted on Twitter. Main Outcomes and Measures: Themes of parent experiences and perspectives about their child’s tonsillectomy. Results: Of 5801 tweets retrieved, 782 satisfied our inclusion criteria. Tweets fell into overarching themes of 1. procedural concerns (n=549, 70.2%) and 2. attitudes/experiences (n=498, 63.7%). Common tweets related to procedural concerns regarded surgical indication (“sick for months”; n=55,7.0%), recovery [n=227, 29.0%; including child’s attitude (“she is nervous”; n=89, 11.4%) nutrition (“won’t eat”; n=89, 11.4%), and parental experience (“harder on the parents than the kid”;(n=87, 11.1%))]. Common tweets regarding attitudes/experiences included tenor of overall care (“yay for tonsil surgery!”; n=155, 19.8%), and fears/apprehensions (“frankly, I’m terrified”; n=178, 22.8%). Conclusions and Relevance: This analysis provides insight into parent perspectives on pediatric tonsillectomy. Parents commonly tweet concerns about surgery that may not be recognized in routine clinician-parent dialogue. Findings may be used to guide clinicians in educating and counseling parents, and further engaging parents and children in shared decision-making for tonsillectomy.

Impact of adenotonsillectomy on acoustic parameters of voice using GRBAS scale in children

“…Dimatos et al Similar changes in acoustic param-eters were observed in children undergoing postadenotonsillectomy and normalized in the third post-operative month (Dimatos et al, 2016). In a recent study, Hairston et al reported on parental concerns regarding tonsillectomy and about the importance of proper counseling of parents and further engaging them in making a proper decision on tonsillectomy for their child (Hairston et al, 2019). Our research will undoubtedly lead to this because our objective measurements demonstrated voice improvement after 3 and 6 weeks of surgery and can thus ease fears about post-operative voice changes.…”

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“…A recent study identified that over 90% of parents use social media to find out more about their child’s cleft lip/palate diagnosis and treatment options and use it to guide decisions (Khouri et al, 2018). A 2019 study that examined parents’ tweets about pediatric tonsillectomy found that parents tweeted about procedural concerns and the tonsillectomy experience (Hairston et al, 2019). In our study, parents authored just 3% of all tweets, suggesting that they may take more of a passive role on Twitter when it comes to cleft lip/palate.…”

Speaking in Tongues: What Parents Really Think About Tongue-Tie Surgery for Their Infants

“…Informed consent was waived by the Johns Hopkins Institutional Review Board because all of the data were posted publicly online. The methodology our study follows a protocol similar to that of the 2019 Hairston et al 31 social media study that used Twitter.com to evaluate parental perspectives of their child’s tonsillectomy. The search strategy was devised using the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analysis) method of reporting systematic literature reviews.…”