Department of Preventive Dental Sciences, College of Dentistry, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, Dammam, Saudi Arabia.
Dental Internship Program, College of Dentistry, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, Dammam, Saudi Arabia.
PLoS One. 2022 Sep 8;17(9):e0272628. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0272628. eCollection 2022.
Twitter as a social media platform has revolutionized the way we interact with others and receive information. The presence of dental schools in Twitter facilitates the engagement of students, educators, dental professionals, and the community. Given the explosive popularity of Twitter as a social media platform and its potential use in the areas of education and branding, the questions of why and how dental schools use these services warrant comprehensive research. Thus, the aim of this study was to analyze the pattern and use of Twitter as a social media platform for dental schools in Saudi Arabia.
The tweets were extracted within the timeframe from July 15, 2019, to July 15, 2020. The Twitter data collected included: full text content, the count of retweets, quotes, replies and likes. Extracted tweets were categorized into five main themes: news and announcement, dental professional communication, general communication, oral health education, and promoting participation. Tweets in each main theme were further categorized according to the dental schools' academic roles namely; education, research and community service. In addition, tweets were classified according to originality of the tweet, language used, nature of the tweet and the use of hashtags and mentions. Descriptive analysis presented in the form of frequency tables with percentages and mean (SD) as well as graphical presentation of the pattern and use of Twitter for Saudi dental schools in the form of bar, pie and line charts. Categorical data were analyzed using chi square test, while continuous data were analyzed using ANOVA. Statistical significance was set at p ≤ 0.05.
A total of 15 Saudi dental schools with Twitter accounts were included in the analysis. King Saud University (KSU) had the largest number of followers with 17,200. Within the time frame of this study, a total of 1,889 original tweets from dental schools were found. Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University (IAU) had the highest number of posted tweets (n = 647, 34.3%). The distribution of tweets was highest in September 2019 (n = 239) and lowest in July 2020 (n = 22). Majority of the tweets (81.9%) belonged to five out of the 15 dental schools. News and announcements were the most tweeted thematic subject with 1,034 tweets (55%). While community service was the most tweeted academic role with 803 tweets (42%). The top five active dental schools' performance for both thematic and academic role classifications were significantly different based on the chi square test (p < 0.001).
This study highlights the importance of Twitter as a social media platform, in dental education especially when it comes to presence and branding for dental schools. Twitter is a helpful platform to expose dental schools to the community, this can be seen by their academic achievements as well as their active role with community service.
Twitter 作为一种社交媒体平台，彻底改变了我们与他人互动和获取信息的方式。牙科学院在 Twitter 上的存在促进了学生、教育者、牙科专业人员和社区的参与。鉴于 Twitter 作为社交媒体平台的爆炸性普及及其在教育和品牌推广领域的潜在用途，牙科学校使用这些服务的原因和方式值得全面研究。因此，本研究旨在分析沙特阿拉伯牙科学院使用 Twitter 作为社交媒体平台的模式和用途。
在 2019 年 7 月 15 日至 2020 年 7 月 15 日的时间范围内提取推文。收集的 Twitter 数据包括：全文内容、转发、引用、回复和点赞的次数。提取的推文分为五个主要主题：新闻和公告、牙科专业人员交流、一般交流、口腔健康教育和促进参与。每个主要主题的推文根据牙科学院的学术角色进一步分为：教育、研究和社区服务。此外，推文根据推文的原创性、使用的语言、推文的性质以及标签和提及的使用进行分类。描述性分析以频率表的形式呈现，包括百分比和平均值（SD），以及以条形图、饼图和线图形式呈现沙特牙科学校使用 Twitter 的模式和用途的图形表示。使用卡方检验分析分类数据，使用方差分析分析连续数据。统计显著性设为 p≤0.05。
共有 15 所拥有 Twitter 账户的沙特牙科学院纳入分析。沙特国王大学（KSU）拥有最多的关注者，为 17,200 人。在本研究的时间范围内，共发现来自牙科学院的 1,889 条原始推文。伊玛目阿卜杜勒拉赫曼·本·法伊萨尔大学（IAU）发布的推文数量最多（n=647，34.3%）。2019 年 9 月发布的推文数量最高（n=239），2020 年 7 月发布的推文数量最低（n=22）。81.9%的推文属于 15 所牙科学院中的 5 所。新闻和公告是最常发布的主题，有 1,034 条推文（55%）。而社区服务是最常发布的学术角色，有 803 条推文（42%）。基于卡方检验，排名前五的活跃牙科学院在主题和学术角色分类方面的表现存在显著差异（p<0.001）。
本研究强调了 Twitter 作为一种社交媒体平台的重要性，尤其是在牙科教育方面，因为它涉及到牙科学院的存在和品牌推广。Twitter 是一个有助于将牙科学院向社区曝光的平台，这可以从他们的学术成就以及他们在社区服务方面的积极作用中看出。
