Social media in undergraduate medical education: A systematic review

Abstract

Introduction There are over 3.81 billion worldwide active social media (SoMe) users. SoMe are ubiquitous in medical education, with roles across undergraduate programmes, including professionalism, blended learning, well being and mentoring. Previous systematic reviews took place before recent explosions in SoMe popularity and revealed a paucity of high‐quality empirical studies assessing its effectiveness in medical education. This review aimed to synthesise evidence regarding SoMe interventions in undergraduate medical education, to identify features associated with positive and negative outcomes. Methods Authors searched 31 key terms through seven databases, in addition to references, citation and hand searching, between 16 June and 16 July 2020. Studies describing SoMe interventions and research on exposure to existing SoMe were included. Title, abstract and full paper screening were undertaken independently by two reviewers. Included papers were assessed for methodological quality using the Medical Education Research Study Quality Instrument (MERSQI) and/or the Standards for Reporting Qualitative Research (SRQR) instrument. Extracted data were synthesised using narrative synthesis. Results 112 studies from 26 countries met inclusion criteria. Methodological quality of included studies had not significantly improved since 2013. Engagement and satisfaction with SoMe platforms in medical education are described. Students felt SoMe flattened hierarchies and improved communication with educators. SoMe use was associated with improvement in objective knowledge assessment scores and self‐reported clinical and professional performance, however evidence for long term knowledge retention was limited. SoMe use was occasionally linked to adverse impacts upon mental and physical health. Professionalism was heavily investigated and considered important, though generally negative correlations between SoMe use and medical professionalism may exist. Conclusions Social media is enjoyable for students who may improve short term knowledge retention and can aid communication between learners and educators. However, higher‐quality study is required to identify longer‐term impact upon knowledge and skills, provide clarification on professionalism standards and protect against harms.

Social Media in Health Studies: A Systematic Review of Comparative Learning Methods

“…Previously, Reed et al reported a mean score of 9.95 ± 2.34 on 213 published and peer-reviewed general education studies, which could be considered the medium quality score [ 21 ]. After analysis of the quality of our included articles, we found a mean score of 11.7 ± 2.6, which is higher than those of Reed et al [ 21 ], but also much higher than previous findings on social media and education, with mean scores from 8.8 ± 3.3 to 9.5 ± 2.0 [ 38 , 39 , 40 ]. These differences are certainly due to the high specificity of our selection criteria that allowed us to assess only comparative studies of several learning methods, with high quality methodology for the most part, even if we included two studies with lower scores of 8 and 8.5 [ 27 , 28 ].…”

Uso de redes sociales en estudiantes de Promoción de la Salud en la era de la COVID-19

“…Existen reportes de uso de varias plataformas de redes sociales, así como de numerosos y variados instrumentos digitales dentro de la educación médica de pregrado, dentro de los planes de estudio de educación médica de pregrado (8) , relacionados al profesionalismo en línea (9) , el aprendizaje blended (10) (que combina horas presenciales y virtuales en una misma asignatura), el bienestar de los estudiantes (11) y la mentoría (12) que representan una fracción de todas las aplicaciones de las redes sociales en el pregrado de Medicina.…”

“…El argumento para la integración de las redes sociales en la práctica educativa está respaldado por múltiples puntos de vista teóricos (8) . Como educadores, ya no se trata de saber si las redes sociales tienen aplicaciones educativas o si las poblaciones de estudiantes universitarios están utilizando activamente estas plataformas para su aprendizaje.…”

“…Como educadores, ya no se trata de saber si las redes sociales tienen aplicaciones educativas o si las poblaciones de estudiantes universitarios están utilizando activamente estas plataformas para su aprendizaje. Al contrario, deberíamos preguntarnos cuál es la mejor manera de utilizar las redes sociales y si dichas plataformas pueden facilitar resultados específicos y, por ende, ayudarnos a cumplir los resultados de aprendizaje planteados (8) . En ese sentido, existen revisiones sistemáticas sobre el uso e impacto de las redes sociales en la educación médica que han investigado diversos desenlaces y su eficacia (8,(13)(14)(15) .…”

“…Al contrario, deberíamos preguntarnos cuál es la mejor manera de utilizar las redes sociales y si dichas plataformas pueden facilitar resultados específicos y, por ende, ayudarnos a cumplir los resultados de aprendizaje planteados (8) . En ese sentido, existen revisiones sistemáticas sobre el uso e impacto de las redes sociales en la educación médica que han investigado diversos desenlaces y su eficacia (8,(13)(14)(15) . Con el advenimiento de la pandemia por la COVID-19, la comunidad de educación médica se ha transformado a nivel global (16) .…”