Health Researchers’ Use of Social Media: Scoping Review

Dol, Justine; Tutelman, Perri R.; Chambers, Christine T.; Barwick, Melanie; Drake, Emily K; Parker, Jennifer A.; Parker, Robin; Benchimol, Eric I; George, Ronald B.; Witteman, Holly O.

doi:10.2196/13687

Cited by 71 publications

(62 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…As described in the Methods, we categorized the sentiments expressed by the authors based on the framework proposed by Nettleton et al [ 20 ] and subsequently used by Dol et al [ 21 ]. The majority (461/543, 84.9%) of articles were celebratory in nature, followed by those that were contingent (74/543, 13.6%), and concerned (8/543, 1.5%).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Additionally, for each article, we categorized the overall sentiment expressed by the authors about the usefulness of telehealth. This categorization was based on the framework developed by Nettleton et al [ 20 ] and subsequently used by Dol et al [ 21 ] in their scoping reviews of the use of internet technology and social media in medical, sociological, and popular literature. Accordingly, the sentiments were categorized as “celebratory” (ie, authors provide a positive appraisal of telehealth use during the pandemic), “contingent” (ie, authors recognize the potential positive contribution but also acknowledge its potential limitations), or “concerned” (ie, authors identify challenges and caution on the imbalance that telehealth may create in health care delivery).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Use of Telehealth During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Scoping Review

Doraiswamy¹,

Abraham²,

Mamtani³

et al. 2020

J Med Internet Res

471

326

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Background With over 37.8 million cases and over 1 million deaths worldwide, the COVID-19 pandemic has created a societal and economic upheaval of unparalleled magnitude. A positive transformation has been brought about by innovative solutions in the health care sector that aim to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on human health. For instance, the use of telehealth has been on the rise amidst this public health emergency. Objective Given the unprecedented scale of the pandemic with no definitive endpoint, we aimed to scope the existing telehealth-related literature during a defined period of the ongoing pandemic (ie, January to June 2020). Methods Our scoping review was guided by the Joanna Briggs Institute Reviewer Manual. We systematically searched PubMed and Embase databases with specific eligibility criteria. Data extracted from the shortlisted articles included first author and affiliation, journal title, publication type, terminologies used to describe telehealth and their accompanying definitions, health discipline or medical specialties and subspecialties wherein telehealth had been applied, the purpose of telehealth use, and the authors’ overall sentiment on telehealth use. We collated the available information and used descriptive statistics to analyze the synthesized data. Results In all, 543 articles published across 331 different journals were included in this scoping review. The Journal of Medical Internet Research and its sister journals featured the highest number of articles (25/543, 4.6%). Nearly all (533/543, 98.2%) articles were in English. The majority of the articles were opinions, commentaries, and perspectives (333/543, 61.3%). Most authors of the articles reviewed were from high-income countries (470/543, 86.6%), especially from the United States of America (237/543, 43.6%). In all, 39 different definitions were used to describe terms equivalent to telehealth. A small percentage (42/543, 7.7%) of the articles focused on the provision of COVID-19–related care. Moreover, 49.7% (270/543) of the articles primarily focused on the provision of multiple components of clinical care, and 23% (125/543) of the articles focused on various specialties and subspecialties of internal medicine. For a vast majority (461/543, 84.9%) of the articles, the authors expressed a celebratory sentiment about the use of telehealth. Conclusions This review identified considerable emerging literature on telehealth during the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic, albeit mostly from high-income countries. There is compelling evidence to suggest that telehealth may have a significant effect on advancing health care in the future. However, the feasibility and application of telehealth in resource-limited settings and low- and middle-income countries must be established to avail its potential and transform health care for the world’s population. Given the rapidity with which telehealth is advancing, a global consensus on definitions, boundaries, protocols, monitoring, evaluation, and data privacy is urgently needed.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Use of Telehealth During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Scoping Review

Doraiswamy¹,

Abraham²,

Mamtani³

et al. 2020

J Med Internet Res

471

326

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…The use of social media platforms to convey public opinion and attitude, has expanded rapidly over the last decade on topics related to public health, infectious disease and behavioural medicine (Dol et al, 2019;Sinnenberg et al, 2016). Social media platforms are seen as an instant method to communicate with the public (Neiger et al, 2012;Waring et al, 2019) and an opportunity to provide better understanding of the roles of healthcare professionals to better shape public perceptions (Antonoff & Stamp, 2017;Gill & Baker, 2019;Silva & Freischlag, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Perceptions of who is in the healthcare team? A content analysis of social media posts during COVID-19 pandemic

El-Awaisi

O’Carroll

Koraysh

et al. 2020

Journal of Interprofessional Care

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Social media posts can be used to explore public perceptions of interprofessional teams and healthcare professionals. The aim of this study was to use social listening technique to explore unfiltered public perceptions of the professionals involved in healthcare teams during the COVID-19 pandemic, in a naturalistic online setting, and to elaborate on the emotional reactions in response to an online social media post. A cross-sectional retrospective review of comments on a specific social media post was conducted between 15 March and 28 April 2020 using summative content analysis. One image that was widely circulated on social media platforms with two questions: 'Who society thinks works at hospital? versus who really works at hospitals?' was selected. Three platforms were searched, Facebook®, Twitter®, and LinkedIn®. Only publicly available posts were included. Out of the initial 40 posts identified, 21 posts which had 1759 comments were analysed and 1576 were included for coding. Of the emerging nine themes, perceptions of who is in the team was the largest (40.5%, n = 639), followed by agreement (23.1%, n = 364) and feeling excluded (16.2%, n = 255). Of emotional expressions, 42.1% were positive and 57.9% negative. The most frequent emotions were frustration (54.4%, n = 857) followed by gratitude (16.3%, n = 257) and relief (15.9%, n = 250). The post brought considerable attention to the role of the interprofessional team and generated many feelings of frustration and exclusion. For this reason, the response to this social media post is very important and not to be overlooked. Healthcare professionals need to work together to strengthen their presence as an interprofessional team, united to deliver safe effective quality care for patients. The current COVID-19 pandemic and the media attention should be taken as an opportunity by the interprofessional community to work together to combat negative media stereotypes. Further research is warranted on public perceptions of the healthcare team.

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“…For example, social media can be used by clinicians who would benefit from the findings in dealing with patients. A recent scoping review of the literature on social media use in health research revealed that social media are increasingly used to recruit patients, collect data, and establish and maintain user engagement, especially in the name of research dissemination [ 2 ]. At the same time, in the era of the internet and web 2.0 technologies that allow content generation and sharing [ 3 ], social media have been increasingly used as a source for measuring the impact of research, as they contribute to knowledge generation, dissemination, and translation [ 4 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Use of Social Media to Increase the Impact of Health Research: Systematic Review

Bardus¹,

El-Rassi²,

Chahrour³

et al. 2020

J Med Internet Res

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Background Academics in all disciplines increasingly use social media to share their publications on the internet, reaching out to different audiences. In the last few years, specific indicators of social media impact have been developed (eg, Altmetrics), to complement traditional bibliometric indicators (eg, citation count and h-index). In health research, it is unclear whether social media impact also translates into research impact. Objective The primary aim of this study was to systematically review the literature on the impact of using social media on the dissemination of health research. The secondary aim was to assess the correlation between Altmetrics and traditional citation-based metrics. Methods We conducted a systematic review to identify studies that evaluated the use of social media to disseminate research published in health-related journals. We specifically looked at studies that described experimental or correlational studies linking the use of social media with outcomes related to bibliometrics. We searched the Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online (MEDLINE), Excerpta Medica dataBASE (EMBASE), and Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL) databases using a predefined search strategy (International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews: CRD42017057709). We conducted independent and duplicate study selection and data extraction. Given the heterogeneity of the included studies, we summarized the findings through a narrative synthesis. Results Of a total of 18,624 retrieved citations, we included 51 studies: 7 (14%) impact studies (answering the primary aim) and 44 (86%) correlational studies (answering the secondary aim). Impact studies reported mixed results with several limitations, including the use of interventions of inappropriately low intensity and short duration. The majority of correlational studies suggested a positive association between traditional bibliometrics and social media metrics (eg, number of mentions) in health research. Conclusions We have identified suggestive yet inconclusive evidence on the impact of using social media to increase the number of citations in health research. Further studies with better design are needed to assess the causal link between social media impact and bibliometrics.

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Health Researchers’ Use of Social Media: Scoping Review

Cited by 71 publications

References 43 publications

Use of Telehealth During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Scoping Review

Use of Telehealth During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Scoping Review

Perceptions of who is in the healthcare team? A content analysis of social media posts during COVID-19 pandemic

The Use of Social Media to Increase the Impact of Health Research: Systematic Review

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