Twitter and Public Health (Part 2): Qualitative Analysis of How Individual Health Professionals Outside Organizations Use Microblogging to Promote and Disseminate Health-Related Information

Hart, Mark; Stetten, Nichole; Islam, Sabrina; Pizarro, Katherine

doi:10.2196/publichealth.6796

Cited by 22 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…We employed a two-phased thematic analysis to identify the types of content health care institutions post on their institutionally sponsored Facebook pages. Thematic analysis is a qualitative method used to identify, analyze, and report on patterns found in text data [ 14 - 16 ]. Use of the method requires “careful reading and rereading of the data” [ 17 ] to identify explicit and implicit meaning embedded within the text [ 18 ].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring Hospitals’ Use of Facebook: Thematic Analysis

Kordzadeh¹,

Young²

2018

J Med Internet Res

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BackgroundAlthough health care organizations such as hospitals and clinics have widely embraced social media as a means to educate the community on health topics and increase patient loyalty and satisfaction, little is known about the content these organizations actually share when using social media channels.ObjectiveThis study aimed to explore the types of content US hospitals post on their Facebook pages and how hospitals’ Facebook activities differ with regard to content types.MethodsWe collected and thematically analyzed more than 1700 Facebook posts made over a 3-month period by 17 US hospitals. During the first phase, the 2 researchers coded a set of 159 posts and created an initial thematic web of content. During the second phase, the researchers coded the remaining posts and then revised, refined, and validated the initial web of content accordingly. Coding consensus was achieved on 1184 of the 1548 analyzable sampled posts (76.49%).ResultsWe identified a list of 13 unique health social media post themes and classified those themes into 3 thematic groups that included announcing, sharing, and recognizing activities. The most frequently used theme was sharing health information, which appeared in 35.81% (424/1184) of the posts analyzed. Such posts sought to provide health tips and advice to community members. Recognizing special days and recognizing employees were the second and third most frequently used themes, respectively, with 14.95% (177/1184) and 11.82% (140/1184) of the posts containing those themes. The frequency of these themes was surprising as the content was geared more toward stakeholders internal to the organization, although most previous literature has focused on social media as a tool to connect with external stakeholders. In addition, we found many of the posts involved more than one theme, and selected sets of themes co-occurred frequently. For example, 25.4% (45/177) of the posts recognizing special days also included content to share health information, and approximately 38% (32/85) of the posts announcing research activities also included content to share health information. Finally, we found similarities and differences between the sampled hospitals in terms of the types of content they posted more frequently on their Facebook pages.ConclusionsHospitals use Facebook as an inexpensive way to educate people on health and wellness topics and to communicate different types of information and news to the public audience. Hospitals and clinics that are expanding their social media activities or are starting to embark on social media strategies can use the results of this study to better formulate their activities on Facebook.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring Hospitals’ Use of Facebook: Thematic Analysis

Kordzadeh¹,

Young²

2018

J Med Internet Res

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“…In a study on social media sharing of public health professionals, the terms "public health practitioner", "MPH" (masters in public health), "public health" and "APHA" (American Public Health Association) were chosen. At the end of the study, it has been shown that public health professionals were sharing tweets to combat misinformation about Ebola (Hart et al, 2017). The use of social media is also a new tool for health organisations to share health-related information (Twynstra and Dworatzek, 2015).…”

Section: Images and Contentmentioning

confidence: 99%

What images and content do professional dietitians share via Instagram?

İnan-Eroğlu

Büyüktuncer

2018

NFS

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Purpose In the age of information, where people can have an easy access to knowledge, the ethical and content-based examination of dietitians’ sharing in the social media is an important step in determining what to share in the social media in the future. The purpose of this study was to analyse the content of Instagram shares of dietitians, a profession group that is becoming more and more widespread in Turkey. Design/methodology/approach Publicly available dietitian Instagram profiles, aiming specifically at those with =500 followers, were included in the study. The hashtag was chosen as #onlinediyet (Turkish for online diet). A total of 1,986 images were identified for analysis. When these images were identified, 883 images were excluded. Thus, overall 1,103 Instagram images were chosen to analyse during a week’s period. Each Instagram image was classified into one of seven categories by authors as food, individual, nutrition information, motivational, miscellaneous, physical activity and recipe. Food and individual groups were also coded into subgroups. Findings A descriptive analysis of the 1,103 online-diet-related images shared by dietitians showed that 53.5 per cent of the images were in food category. There were no differences between female and male dietitians in terms of categories of shared images (p > 0.05). Dietitians also shared individual images (34.5 per cent) including weight loss follow-up (56.2 per cent), self-portrait (22.0 per cent) and conversation with clients (14.0 per cent) images on Instagram. Originality/value The results of this study set a baseline for future studies. Given the rapid growth of this platform in recent years, not only the field of dietetics but also other health-care fields would benefit from clear guidelines about what information can or cannot be shared on social media.

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“…Thematic analysis is a qualitative method used to identify, analyze, and report on patterns found in text data [14][15][16]. Use of the method requires "careful reading and re-reading of the data" [17] (p. 258) to identify explicit and implicit meaning embedded within the text.…”

Section: Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring Hospitals� Use of Facebook: Thematic Analysis (Preprint)

Kordzadeh¹,

Young²

2017

Preprint

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Background: While healthcare organizations such as hospitals and clinics have widely embraced social media as a means to educate the community on health topics and increase patient loyalty and satisfaction, little is known about the content that these organizations actually share when using social media channels. Objectives: This study aimed to explore the types of content that U.S. hospitals post on their Facebook pages and how hospitals' Facebook activities differ with regard to content types. Methods: We collected and thematically analyzed more than 1,700 Facebook posts made over a three-month period by seventeen U.S. hospitals. During the first phase, the two researchers coded a set of 159 posts and created an initial thematic web of content. During the second phase, the researchers coded the remaining posts and then revised, refined, and validated the initial web of content accordingly. Coding consensus was achieved on 1184 of the 1548 analyzable sampled posts (76.49%). Results:We identified a list of thirteen unique health social media post themes and classified those themes into three thematic groups that included announcing, sharing, and recognizing activities. The most frequently used theme was sharing health information, which appeared in more than 35% of the posts analyzed. Such posts sought to provide health tips and advice to community members. Recognizing special days and recognizing employees were the second and third most frequently used themes, respectively, with 14.95% and 11.82% of the posts containing those themes. The frequency of these themes were surprising in that the content was geared more toward stakeholders internal to the organization, while most prior literature has focused on social media as a tool to connect with external stakeholders. In addition, we found that many of the posts involved more than one theme and selected sets of themes co-occurred frequently. For example, 25% of the posts recognizing special days also included content to share health information and nearly 38% of the posts announcing research activities also included content to share health information. Finally, we found that hospitals were in some ways similar and in some other ways different in terms of the themes that they predominantly used in their Facebook posts. Conclusions:Using Facebook is an inexpensive, yet effective way for healthcare organizations to educate people on health and wellness topics and to communicate different types of information and news to the public audience. Hospitals and clinics that are expanding their social media activities or are starting to embark on social media strategies can use the results of this study to better formulate their activities on Facebook.

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Twitter and Public Health (Part 2): Qualitative Analysis of How Individual Health Professionals Outside Organizations Use Microblogging to Promote and Disseminate Health-Related Information

Cited by 22 publications

References 11 publications

Exploring Hospitals’ Use of Facebook: Thematic Analysis

Exploring Hospitals’ Use of Facebook: Thematic Analysis

What images and content do professional dietitians share via Instagram?

Exploring Hospitals� Use of Facebook: Thematic Analysis (Preprint)

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