Comparing academic productivity and Instagram presence in oral and maxillofacial surgery training programs

Social media has become an increasingly important tool in how surgeons collaborate with one another, disseminate educational information, and communicate with patients.

The purpose of this study was to assess the relationship between academic productivity and social media (Instagram) presence amongst oral and maxillofacial surgery programs.

A cross-sectional study was used to identify oral and maxillofacial surgery programs and their respective residency Instagram accounts. Information regarding number of followers, posts, and likes were recorded for each program. Academic productivity metrics for each faculty including H-index, number of publications, and number of citations were recorded.

The independent variable was the type of residency program: certificate, dual-degree, or combined track.

The main outcome variable was the academic influence quantified by h-index, citations, and publications of the programs and their social media influence quantified by number of followers/posts.

Instagram posts were categorized into departmental posts, educational, social, professional and miscellaneous. Engagement was further quantified by the number of likes.

Descriptive statistics, one-way ANOVA, Tukey's Multiple Comparisons tests, ROUT's outlier test (Q = 0.1%), and linear regression plots with a P value < 0.05.

Instagram accounts were identified for 65 (73%) of the 89 programs. There was a statistically significant moderately positive correlation between the number of followers for a program's Instagram account compared with the number of publications (r = 0.5110, P  < 0.001). There was a statistically significant weakly positive correlation between the number of followers for a program's Instagram account compared with average faculty h-index(r = 0.4982, P  < 0.001), and number of citations (r = 0.4300, P  < 0.001). There was a statistically significant weakly positive correlation between the number of posts for a program's Instagram account compared with average faculty h-index (r = 0.3438, P < 0.001), number of publications (r = 0.3580, P = 0.001), and number of citations (r = 0.3973, P  < 0.001). Across all programs combined, educational posts garnered more likes compared to miscellaneous (P = 0.0129), social (P = 0.0018), departmental (P = 0.0005), and professional posts (P < 0.0001).

There was a moderately positive correlation between average faculty H-index and number of followers for an oral and maxillofacial surgery program's Instagram account. There was a weak positive correlation between other measures of academic productivity and social media presence. Educational content garnered the most engagement from followers, despite surgery accounts mostly generating departmental focused posts.