Addressing immediate public coronavirus (COVID-19) concerns through social media: Utilizing Reddit’s AMA as a framework for Public Engagement with Science

Lai, Deborah; Wang, Daniel; Calvano, Joshua; Raja, Ali S.; He, Shuhan

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0240326

Cited by 36 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 10 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Although the increase in testing capacity nationally has improved (as of 6 November, Arkansas medical centers reported receiving a majority of test results within three days), the time between testing and return of results to patients is still at risk of significant delays as the number of COVID-19 cases rise [ 36 ]. This finding also highlights the importance of providing clear communication to patients about the need to quarantine as they wait for test results [ 37 , 38 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Perceived Barriers to COVID-19 Testing

McElfish

Purvis

James

et al. 2021

IJERPH

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

(1) Background: Prior studies have documented that access to testing has not been equitable across all communities in the US, with less testing availability and lower testing rates documented in rural counties and lower income communities. However, there is limited understanding of the perceived barriers to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) testing. The purpose of this study was to document the perceived barriers to COVID-19 testing. (2) Methods: Arkansas residents were recruited using a volunteer research participant registry. Participants were asked an open-ended question regarding their perceived barriers to testing. A qualitative descriptive analytical approach was used. (3) Results: Overall, 1221 people responded to the open-ended question. The primary barriers to testing described by participants were confusion and uncertainty regarding testing guidelines and where to go for testing, lack of accessible testing locations, perceptions that the nasal swab method was too painful, and long wait times for testing results. (4) Conclusions: This study documents participant reported barriers to COVID-19 testing. Through the use of a qualitative descriptive method, participants were able to discuss their concerns in their own words. This work provides important insights that can help public health leaders and healthcare providers with understanding and mitigating barriers to COVID-19 testing.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Perceived Barriers to COVID-19 Testing

McElfish

Purvis

James

et al. 2021

IJERPH

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…It raised concerns and anxiety among many users [ 13 , 74 ] and may have confused and distracted people, while causing harm to their mental health [ 75 ]. Moreover, the spreading of misleading information is the most infectious disease resulting to more health problems including anxiety, depression and loneliness [ 12 ]. Besides, several individuals expressed negative feelings (such as anxiety, stress, fear, and nervousness) via social media, which may have increased similar feelings in others [ 76 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The dissemination of misleading and false information via social media has many negative psychological and social consequences for community members [ 10 , 11 ]. In fact, Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), said, “the wrong information about COVID-19 may be the most infectious disease,” and noted that misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic has spread just as rapidly as the virus itself [ 12 ]. The stress and shock greatly affected the social and psychological well-being of the public [ 13 , 14 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Psychosocial effects of social media on the Saudi society during the Coronavirus Disease 2019 pandemic: A cross-sectional study

Hammad

Alqarni

2021

PLoS ONE

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has been posing a substantial challenge to human survival and well-being, which rely on the actions and behaviors of individuals. It is essential that accurate information is distributed; however, misinformation has been spread via social media. Consequently, the resulting panic has to be addressed while putting essential public health measures in place. It is also important to explore the link between the social media exposure and well-being. Therefore, in the current study, we aimed to identify the levels of anxiety, depression, and social isolation among individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, we explored the relationship between exposure to misleading social media news and anxiety, depression, and social isolation. A cross sectional design was employed to collect data from 371 Saudi participants (aged 16–60 years), using the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7, Centre for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale, and de Jong Gierveld Loneliness Scale. Results showed that the prevalence of anxiety, depression, and social isolation was 47.82%, 47.57%, and 46.42%, respectively. Further, more than 83% of the participants reported using social media frequently during the pandemic. We found that exposure to misinformation via social media has a significant positive relationship with anxiety, depression, and social isolation. However, Due to the cross-sectional nature of this study it cannot be determined whether social media causes negative mental health outcomes, or if individuals experiencing greater depression, anxiety and social isolation turn to social media more than others, or if some third variable might explain both. Based on our findings, we present specific suggestions related to the COVID-19 pandemic to the government of Saudi Arabia. Minoring and filtering out misleading information with the cooperation of the World Health Organization (WHO) can promote the spread of accurate news in Saudi Arabia.

show abstract

“…73 A content analysis of 522 Reddit comments showed that the topic of symptoms accounted for 27% (141) of all comments, followed by the topic of prevention (25% [131]). 74 Likewise, another content analysis of 155 353 unique English tweets showed that the most mentioned topic was "peril of COVID-19". 76 Additionally, a study that examined 126 049 English tweets by use of sentiment analysis and latent Dirichlet analysis for topic modelling showed that the most common emotion that was mentioned was fear, and the most common topic that was mentioned was the economic and political effects.…”

Section: Social Media For Surveillance and Monitoringmentioning

confidence: 99%

What social media told us in the time of COVID-19: a scoping review

Tsao

Chen

Tisseverasinghe

et al. 2021

The Lancet Digital Health

658

382

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, social media has rapidly become a crucial communication tool for information generation, dissemination, and consumption. In this scoping review, we selected and examined peerreviewed empirical studies relating to COVID-19 and social media during the first outbreak from November, 2019, to November, 2020. From an analysis of 81 studies, we identified five overarching public health themes concerning the role of online social media platforms and COVID-19. These themes focused on: surveying public attitudes, identifying infodemics, assessing mental health, detecting or predicting COVID-19 cases, analysing government responses to the pandemic, and evaluating quality of health information in prevention education videos. Furthermore, our Review emphasises the paucity of studies on the application of machine learning on data from COVID-19-related social media and a scarcity of studies documenting real-time surveillance that was developed with data from social media on COVID-19. For COVID-19, social media can have a crucial role in disseminating health information and tackling infodemics and misinformation. e176 www.thelancet.com/digital-health Vol 3 March 2021 Review Methods OverviewStudies exploring the use of social media relating to COVID-19 were reviewed by use of the scoping review methods of Arksey and O'Malley 13 and Levac and colleagues. 14 We followed the five-step scoping review protocol and the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for scoping reviews. Data SourcesExploratory searches were done on COVID-19 Open Research Dataset Challenge and Google Scholar in April, 2020. These searches helped to define the Review scope, develop the research questions, and determine eligibility criteria. After such activity, MEDLINE and PubMed, Scopus, and PsycINFO were selected for this Review because they include peer-reviewed literature in the fields of medicine, behavioural sciences, psychology, health-care systems, and clinical sciences. Variations of the key search terms can be found in the panel. Since the start of the current pandemic, COVID-19 articles were reviewed and published at an unprecedently rapid rate, with numerous publications that were available ahead of print referred to as preprints or articles in press. In this Review, we consider peer-reviewed preprints to be equivalent to published peer-reviewed articles, and relevant articles were screened accordingly. Screening procedureMainly, the primary reviewer (S-FT) screened title and abstract for each article to decide whether an article met the inclusion criteria. If the criteria were confirmed, then the article was included; otherwise, it was excluded. Paragraphs in articles were assigned a code representing one of the five themes (eg, I for infodemic), then a code was assigned to the article on the basis of the majority of paragraph codes. Next, quotes were sorted under each code, applying Ose's method. 15 Braun and Clark's thematic analysis method was used and involved searchin...

show abstract

Addressing immediate public coronavirus (COVID-19) concerns through social media: Utilizing Reddit’s AMA as a framework for Public Engagement with Science

Cited by 36 publications

References 10 publications

Perceived Barriers to COVID-19 Testing

Perceived Barriers to COVID-19 Testing

Psychosocial effects of social media on the Saudi society during the Coronavirus Disease 2019 pandemic: A cross-sectional study

What social media told us in the time of COVID-19: a scoping review

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About