Department of Orthodontics, Faculty of Dentistry, Assiut University, Assiut, Egypt.
Department of Pediatric Dentistry and Dental Public Health, Faculty of Dentistry, Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt.
Orthod Craniofac Res. 2024 Apr;27(2):259-266. doi: 10.1111/ocr.12722. Epub 2023 Oct 19.
Clear aligners-related posts are popularized on social media platforms to educate patients and peers and to market aligners in dental practices. This study aimed to characterize the account credentials and content of the top-performing posts to understand the spread of clear aligners-related information on Instagram.
This cross-sectional web-based study analysed 13 Instagram clear aligners-related hashtags. Content analysis was performed for the "Top 10 posts" listed under the "Top" section for each hashtag within Instagram, as sorted by Instagram's algorithm. Data were analysed for the poster's background, credentials, role, post format, content, and engagement level ratio. Duplicate posts and those not relevant to clear aligners were excluded. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of the collected data were conducted.
A total of 29 192 596 posts mentioned the selected hashtags, of which 130 posts were screened in this study. Most posts were authored by dentists (n = 84), 79.8% of them were orthodontic specialists. Self-promotional posts comprised 90.2%, while educational posts accounted for only 8.9%. Interestingly, the number of likes and comments received on posts by patients (n = 19, median = 112, IQR = 340) was significantly higher than those posted by dentists (n = 84, median = 93, IQR = 81.75) (P = .004).
More than 29 million posts about clear aligners were identified on Instagram. Orthodontists are the leading authors of aligners hashtags. However, the majority of the posts are self-promotional and have nonfactual information. Social media awareness among orthodontic specialists may help provide more evidence-based content about clear aligners and can act as an interactive networking and health communication platform.
在社交媒体平台上，有关透明牙套的帖子很受欢迎，这些帖子既能教育患者和同行，也能为牙医诊所推销牙套。本研究旨在描述表现最佳帖子的账户凭证和内容，以了解在 Instagram 上传播有关透明牙套信息的情况。
这是一项基于网络的横断面研究，分析了 13 个 Instagram 透明牙套相关话题标签。通过 Instagram 算法对每个话题标签的“热门”部分中的“前 10 个帖子”进行内容分析。对发布者的背景、凭证、角色、帖子格式、内容和参与度比例进行数据分析。排除重复帖子和与透明牙套无关的帖子。对收集的数据进行定量和定性分析。
共有 2919.2 万条提及所选话题标签的帖子，其中 130 条帖子在本研究中进行了筛选。大多数帖子由牙医撰写（n=84），其中 79.8%为正畸专家。自我宣传的帖子占 90.2%，而教育性帖子仅占 8.9%。有趣的是，患者（n=19，中位数=112，IQR=340）发布的帖子获得的点赞和评论数量明显高于牙医（n=84，中位数=93，IQR=81.75）（P=0.004）。
在 Instagram 上发现了超过 2900 万条有关透明牙套的帖子。正畸医生是牙套话题标签的主要作者。然而，大多数帖子都是自我宣传的，且包含非事实信息。正畸专家对社交媒体的认识可能有助于提供更多关于透明牙套的循证内容，并可以作为互动网络和健康交流平台。
