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

Abstract

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.

Psychological Distress, Fear of COVID-19, and Resilient Coping Abilities among Healthcare Workers in a Tertiary First-Line Hospital during the Coronavirus Pandemic

“…We can speculate that this may be due to an effective and powerful sense of teamwork that was established during the first wave of the pandemic, which helped in actively facing the multiple adversities and stressors. Moreover, since social support has been demonstrated to bolster coping abilities and to positively influence the resilience of healthcare workers during the pandemic, we can hypothesize that the sense of gratitude conveyed by both media and society during the first phases of the COVID-19 outbreak may have been helpful in determining a sense of effectiveness in the healthcare teams [34]. However, given the notable changes that pandemic control measures have over time [35], coupled with the ambiguity inherent in some media-conveyed messages [36], further and longitudinal evaluations of the influence of social support on coping abilities of HCWs are needed.…”

Fears about COVID‐19 and perceived risk among people with rheumatoid arthritis or ankylosing spondylitis following the initial lockdown in Aotearoa New Zealand

“…However, individuals taking biologics reported higher perceived risk of contracting SARS‐CoV‐2 infection. This demonstrates the concerns that media reports can raise about how immunosuppressant medications like DMARDs may cause of more severe outcomes of COVID‐19 (El‐Awaisi et al., 2020 ; Leigh et al., 2020 ), which also align with the evidence‐based advice given during patient education about DMARDs. Hence, it could be beneficial for rheumatology health professionals to inform patients about recent findings that biologic medications minimally increase an individual's risk of SARS‐CoV‐2 infection (Lahiri & Dixon, 2015 ; Listing et al., 2005 ; Sood et al., 2020 ).…”

“…The highest level was called Alert Level 4 and relied on public goodwill and cooperation to isolate at home with minimal travel. A global pandemic with such restrictions on movement is unprecedented in living memory (Baker, Kvalsvig, et al., 2020 ), and the news cycle has thus placed COVID‐19 at the centre of its coverage since (El‐Awaisi et al., 2020 ; Leigh et al., 2020 ). The level of daily information is informative but also creates anxiety about the spread of infection and mortality rates in some countries (Lai et al., 2020 ).…”

Consumer Informatics and COVID-19 Pandemics: Challenges and Opportunities for Research

“…Cluster 2 is composed of studies reporting the lived experience of patients and health workers during the pandemic [ 9 10 11 12 13 ]. El-Awaisi et al [ 9 ] used social listening technique to explore unfiltered public perceptions during the COVID-19 pandemic and to elaborate on the emotional reactions in response to an online social media post about healthcare professionals. The post asked who do you think works in hospitals versus who really works in hospitals?…”