Social Media and Dental Practitioner's Knowledge of Misinformation, Infodemic and Fact-Checking on Dental Information

Abstract

Social media is currently among the most popular web activities among dental professionals. The study aimed to assess social media usage, knowledge about misinformation, infodemic and fact-checking among dental professionals on dental information. The current study design was a descriptive cross-sectional study conducted among dental professionals from Riyadh City, Saudi Arabia. The questionnaire comprised demographic data of study participants and knowledge about misinformation, infodemic and fact-checking about social media use for their dental profession. Descriptive statistics were used for analysis. A total of 1192 dental practitioners responded to the questionnaire. In our study, most participating dentists were young and had 1-5 years of experience (51%). Most participants responded that sometimes (49%), they fact-check social media content about dental information. The google is the most used to check the fact content. About 90% of dentists never received notification about factual errors. The knowledge about misinformation and fact-checking is moderate among dental practitioners. Keywords: Dental practitioner, Dentists, Descriptive study, Fact-checking, Misinformation, social media.