Campbell Lauren, Evans Yolanda, Pumper Megan, Moreno Megan A
University of Washington School of Public Health, Seattle, USA.
University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, USA.
BMC Med Inform Decis Mak. 2016 Jul 15;16:91. doi: 10.1186/s12911-016-0327-y.
A growing number of physicians are using social media as a professional platform for health communication. The purpose of this study was to understand perspectives and experiences of these "early adopter" physician bloggers and social media users.
This was an exploratory qualitative study involving in-depth semi-structured telephone interviews of physicians who were early adopters, defined as physicians who used social media to distribute health information. Participants were recruited through snowball sampling. Interview transcripts were manually analyzed for common themes by three separate investigators who came to common conclusions via the constant comparative method.
Seventeen physicians participated in this study, including 35 % females, 76 % pediatricians and 76 % bloggers. Participants identified multiple perceived benefits and barriers to social media use by physicians; further, four major themes were identified. First, participants often saw themselves as rugged individualists who set their own rules for social media health communications. Second, participants expressed uncertainty about boundaries or strategies for social media use. Third, participants described using social media much like traditional media, as a one-way communication platform, rather than as an interactive forum. Finally, participants expressed disparate views regarding the time involved in participating in social media; some felt that time spent on social media was unproblematic to fit into their day while others felt that it was an impediment to patient care.
Uncertainty remains regarding roles and responsibilities of physicians providing medical content within social media forums and few providers appeared to be using the platform to its full potential. Future studies may inform best practices to optimize social media health communication to benefit patients.
越来越多的医生将社交媒体用作健康交流的专业平台。本研究的目的是了解这些“早期采用者”医生博主和社交媒体用户的观点及经历。
这是一项探索性定性研究，涉及对早期采用者医生进行深入的半结构化电话访谈，早期采用者定义为使用社交媒体传播健康信息的医生。通过滚雪球抽样招募参与者。由三名独立的研究人员对手动分析访谈记录中的共同主题，他们通过持续比较法得出共同结论。
17名医生参与了本研究，其中女性占35%，儿科医生占76%，博主占76%。参与者确定了医生使用社交媒体的多种感知到的益处和障碍；此外，还确定了四个主要主题。首先，参与者经常将自己视为特立独行的人，为社交媒体健康交流制定自己的规则。其次，参与者对社交媒体使用的界限或策略表示不确定。第三，参与者将社交媒体的使用描述得很像传统媒体，是一个单向交流平台，而不是一个互动论坛。最后，参与者对参与社交媒体所花费的时间表达了不同的看法；一些人认为花在社交媒体上的时间很容易融入他们的一天，而另一些人则认为这对患者护理是一种阻碍。
在社交媒体论坛中提供医疗内容的医生的角色和责任仍不明确，很少有提供者似乎在充分利用该平台。未来的研究可能会为优化社交媒体健康交流以造福患者的最佳实践提供信息。
