Chellamuthu Girinivasan, Muthu Sathish, Siddamanickam Siddeshwar
Orthopaedic Research Group, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India.
Department of Orthopaedics and Trauma, Saveetha Medical College and Hospital, Chennai, India.
J Bone Joint Surg Am. 2024 Jun 5;106(11):1022-1028. doi: 10.2106/JBJS.21.01370. Epub 2022 Oct 10.
Twitter has become a part of every medical field, including orthopaedics. #OrthoTwitter is the hashtag commonly used for orthopaedic-related tweets. Researchers have assessed the impact of Twitter in orthopaedics, but no study has evaluated the individual tweets under #OrthoTwitter. The purpose of the present study was to determine the nature of the content and interactions under #OrthoTwitter and to analyze the usefulness of #OrthoTwitter.
After a pilot study, an analysis of #OrthoTwitter tweets was conducted from May 1, 2021, to June 30, 2021. Data were extracted in 2 stages. In Stage I, data were manually extracted at 8 p . m . IST (Indian Standard Time) on alternate days. In Stage II, data were collected using the web-scraping tool Octoparse. Data were analyzed on the basis of 3 characteristics-topic, purpose, and format of the tweet-with each characteristic comprising 10, 6, and 7 categories, respectively. An association analysis was performed using SPSS software.
One thousand and twenty-three tweets were analyzed. Five hundred and fifty-three (54%) of the 1,023 tweets were from orthopaedic surgeons and 123 (12%) were from orthopaedic residents. Medical students aspiring to be orthopaedic surgeons contributed 31 tweets (3%). #OrthoTwitter was also used by non-orthopaedic departments, most frequently radiology. Tweets that were educational or informative were the most common, as compared with tweets of other purposes. Two hundred and forty-six (24%) of the 1,023 tweets were educational (e.g., discussions of cases or journals) and 368 (36%) were informative (e.g., conference announcements and advertisements). Notable tweet subcategories included those related to COVID-19 (71 tweets; 7%), those of a motivational nature (41 tweets; 4%), and those containing some type of graphic content (644 tweets; 63%), for the topic, purpose, and format characteristics, respectively. We noted significantly more likes for tweets with an educational purpose (p = 0.017) and for tweets with images (p < 0.001). We also noted a significant number of retweets of educational tweets (p < 0.001).
#OrthoTwitter provides a unique environment in which education, news, collegial interaction, social responsibility, and entertainment thrive, making Twitter a virtual community. Tweets with an educational purpose and those that included images generated more interactions. Orthopaedic surgeons should consider using #OrthoTwitter in their orthopaedic-related tweets for a broader reach.
推特已成为包括骨科在内的各个医学领域的一部分。#骨科推特#是常用于与骨科相关推文的主题标签。研究人员已经评估了推特在骨科领域的影响，但尚无研究对#骨科推特#下的单条推文进行评估。本研究的目的是确定#骨科推特#下内容和互动的性质，并分析#骨科推特#的实用性。
在一项试点研究之后，于2021年5月1日至2021年6月30日对#骨科推特#推文进行了分析。数据分两个阶段提取。在第一阶段，于印度标准时间晚上8点隔天手动提取数据。在第二阶段，使用网络爬虫工具八爪鱼采集数据。根据推文的三个特征——主题、目的和格式进行数据分析，每个特征分别包含10、6和7个类别。使用SPSS软件进行关联分析。
共分析了1023条推文。1023条推文中有553条（54%）来自骨科外科医生，123条（12%）来自骨科住院医师。有志成为骨科外科医生的医学生贡献了31条推文（3%）。非骨科科室也使用#骨科推特#，最常见的是放射科。与其他目的的推文相比，具有教育性或信息性的推文最为常见。1023条推文中有246条（24%）具有教育性（例如病例讨论或期刊讨论），368条（36%）具有信息性（例如会议公告和广告）。值得注意的推文子类别分别为与新冠病毒相关的（71条推文；7%）、激励性质的（41条推文；4%）以及包含某种图形内容的（644条推文；63%），分别对应主题、目的和格式特征。我们注意到具有教育目的的推文获得的点赞明显更多（p = 0.017），带有图片的推文点赞也更多（p < 0.001）。我们还注意到具有教育性的推文被大量转发（p < 0.001）。
#骨科推特#提供了一个独特的环境，教育、新闻、同行互动、社会责任和娱乐在其中蓬勃发展，使推特成为一个虚拟社区。具有教育目的的推文以及包含图片的推文产生了更多互动。骨科外科医生应考虑在其与骨科相关推文中使用#骨科推特#，以扩大影响力。
