Who's Posting What? A Qualitative, Cross-Sectional Study Comparing Twitter and Instagram Patterns Between Health Care...

Area of Science:

• Social Media Analysis
• Urogynecology
• Health Communication

Background:

• Limited physician-authored, evidence-based content exists on social media platforms.
• Physician social media usage patterns, including audience and content, are not well-documented.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate social media (Twitter and Instagram) usage patterns for urogynecology hashtags.
• To analyze content and intended audience of posts by physicians, patients, and allied health professionals (AHPs).

Main Methods:

• Utilized 12 urogynecology hashtags from the Urogynecology Tag Ontology project for Twitter and Instagram searches.
• Included up to 5 top posts per hashtag per author type (physician, patient, AHP).
• Analyzed posts using Dedoose qualitative software for author, hashtag, intended audience, and themes.

Main Results:

• Twitter: 41% physician, 40% patient, 18.3% AHP posts. Physician content targeted health professionals (64%).
• Instagram: 50% patient, 39% AHP, 11% physician posts. AHP content targeted patients (62%).
• Physicians discussed academic topics; patients shared personal experiences. Most patient posts targeted other patients (90%).

Conclusions:

• Physicians favor Twitter for peer-focused content, with limited direct patient engagement.
• Patients and AHPs utilize social media for patient-to-patient and patient-to-public communication.
• Significant opportunity exists to enhance physician-public interaction and patient education on social media.