Social Media Policies of Medical Colleges of Pakistan

Abstract

Introduction: A total of 144 medical colleges are contributing to the country’s progress. Excessive usage of social media is a cause of not only the deterioration of physical and psychological health of medical students, but has also become a defining reason of procrastination and attaining less than ideal grades. Where most western institutes implement strict social media policies in medical schools, those in Pakistan are gravely lacking.Objective: The objective of this research implementation of social media in medical schools of Pakistan and then identify the need to develop such policies.Methods: We conducted qualitative research in which method of data collection was primarily focus group discussions (FGD) of a total of 40 participants from five different medical colleges of Pakistan. The participants included medical practitioners and medical students(n=20) who were further divided into four groups of five participants each. FGD was conducted online.Results: Content analysis revealed seven core themes as point of discussions to be highlighted. Almost all participants were grossly unaware of the importance of social media usage regulation and its implementation in medical schools.Conclusion: At the end of the FGD it was unanimously agreed upon that there must be a uniform and standard social media policy defined by the regulating bodies of medical schools. This research may further be conducted by including policymakers in the sample.KEYWORDS: Social media, policy, medical colleges.