Research Article – Healthcare Practitioners’ Views of Social media as an Educational Resource

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Healthcare practitioners’ views of social media as an educational resource 2/12/21, 9:38 PM PLoS One. 2020; 15(2): e0228372. Published online 2020 Feb 6. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0228372 PMCID: PMC7004337 PMID: 32027686 Healthcare practitioners’ views of social media as an educational resource Adam G. Pizzuti , Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Software, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & #1,¤a* #2 editing, Karan H. Patel , Conceptualization, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – review & editing, 3,¤b‡ Erin K. McCreary , Conceptualization, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – review & editing, Emily Heil , 4,‡ Conceptualization, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – review & editing, Christopher M. Bland , 5,‡ Conceptualization, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – review & editing, Eric Chinaeke , Data curation, Formal 1,‡ analysis, Software, Writing – review & editing, Bryan L. Love , Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, #1 Investigation, Methodology, Writing – review & editing, and P. Brandon Bookstaver , Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Software, Writing – review & editing #1,* Elisa J. F. Houwink, Editor 1 Department of Clinical Pharmacy and Outcomes Sciences, University of South Carolina College of Pharmacy, Columbia, South Carolina, United States of America 2 Kaiser Permanente Georgia, Atlanta, Georgia, United States of America 3 University of Wisconsin Health, Madison, Wisconsin, United States of America 4 University of Maryland College of Pharmacy, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America 5 University of Georgia College of Pharmacy, Savannah, Georgia, United States of America Leiden University Medical Center, NETHERLANDS # Contributed equally. Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. ¤a Current address: St. Joseph’s/Candler Health System, Savannah, Georgia, United States of America ¤b Current address: University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States of America
‡ These authors also contributed equally to this work. * E-mail: pizzutia@sjchs.or g (AGP); bookstaver@cop.sc.edu (PBB) Received 2019 Feb 18; Accepted 2020 Jan 14. Copyright © 2020 Pizzuti et al This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Abstract https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7004337/ Page 1 of 20 Healthcare practitioners’ views of social media as an educational resource 2/12/21, 9:38 PM Social media is increasingly utilized as a resource in healthcare. We sought to identify perceptions of using social media as an educational tool among healthcare practitioners. An electronic survey was distributed to healthcare administrators, nurses, nurse practitioners, pharmacists, physicians, and physician assistants of hospital systems and affiliated health science schools in Georgia, Maryland, South Carolina, and Wisconsin. Survey questions evaluated respondents’ use and views of social media for educational purposes and workplace accessibility using a Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree). Nurses (75%), pharmacists (11%), and administrators (7%) were the most frequent respondents. Facebook® (27%), Pinterest® (17%), and Instagram® (17%) were the most frequently accessed social media platforms. Nearly 85% agreed or strongly agreed that social media can be an effective tool for educational purposes. Among those who had social media platforms, 43.0% use them for educational purposes. Pinterest® (30%), Facebook® (22%), LinkedIn® (16%), and Twitter® (14%) were most frequently used for education. About 50% of respondents had limited or no access to social media at work. Administrators, those with unlimited and limited work access, and respondents aged 20–29 and 30–39 years were more likely to agree that social media is an educational tool (OR: 3.41 (95% CI 1.31 to 8.84), 4.18 (95% CI 2.30 to 7.60), 1.66 (95% CI 1.22 to 2.25), 4.40 (95% CI 2.80 to 6.92), 2.14 (95% CI 1.53 to 3.01) respectively). Residents, physicians, and those with unlimited access were less likely to agree with allowing social media access at work for educational purposes only. Healthcare practitioners frequently utilize social media, and many believe it can be an effective educational tool in healthcare. Introduction Social media is an effective communication tool allowing people to connect and share information [ 1 ]. Approximately 75% of online Americans are influenced by information on social media [ 2 ]. Social media platforms have grown into a habitual activity for many, including healthcare professionals. While the perception for negative impact on productivity and efficiency may exist, many use social media as a tool for program marketing, research dissemination, and education and training [ 3 – 12 ]. Social media platforms such as Twitter® have been used in the educational curriculum of medical training programs, increasing access to key resources and content knowledge [ 13 , 14 ]. Many leading healthcare organizations and medical expert groups link conference attendees, members and others using a Twitter hashtag (#) chat to educate and discuss current and controversial topics [ 15 , 16 , 45 ]. Given the influx of professional users and benefit to intended audience, several groups have published guidance on how healthcare practitioners and institutions may use social media as a positive platform for marketing and disseminating scholarly deliverables [ 17 , 18 ].
Healthcare information is constantly changing as new clinical evidence becomes available. It is suggested that clinical practice guideline recommendations are often outdated within 6 years of publication [ 19 ]. Social media platforms have the potential to aid the individual practitioner in notifications of newly published evidence and pipeline data. Many journals have turned to social media to disseminate updates and healthcare information to end users [ 20 – 22 ]. While this could be a potential outlet for acquiring or alerting to new, evidence-based information, many institutions limit or block access to social media in the workplace [ 23 ]. This decision may be because of the lack of awareness of social media’s potential benefits and use by healthcare workers. The purpose of this study was to assess healthcare practitioners’ views on and the use of social media for educational purposes. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7004337/ Page 2 of 20 Healthcare practitioners’ views of social media as an educational resource 2/12/21, 9:38 PM Materials and methods The study protocol was reviewed by the University of South Carolina Institutional Review Board (IRB) and determined not to meet the criteria for human subjects research; therefore, this study received exempt status. This was a cross-sectional, survey-based study conducted at four health sciences colleges (University of Georgia, University of Maryland, University of South Carolina, and the University of Wisconsin) and affiliated hospitals within the United States. The primary study objective was to measure and compare attitudes regarding social media platforms use for educational purposes among healthcare professionals. The survey instrument consisted of 70-items developed by two authors (AP, KP) with input from all co-authors. Survey items were comprised of various question formats primarily of Likert scale type (1 = strongly agree, 5 = strongly disagree). Participants were asked to provide insight into their quantitative and qualitative use of social media, attitudes regarding social media use for educational purposes and stances regarding social media use in the workplace. The survey also included a series of demographic questions (e.g. position, time since terminal training and geographic location). Educational use of social media was defined at the beginning of the survey as anything regarding the healthcare field that you deem as knowledgeable and useful information (e.g. accessing journal articles, reading drug updates) ( S1 File : Survey PDF). Respondents who have a split position (e.g. clinical faculty) were asked to answer the questions related to social media access from the perspective of their institution where patient care activities primarily occur. The survey was piloted among health science faculty excluded from the final study population. Feedback resulted in condensing the survey to increase likelihood of survey completion. The estimated survey completion time was 5 to 10 minutes ( S1 File : Survey PDF). The survey was created and electronically administered using REDCap® (Vanderbilt University–Nashville, TN, 7.5.2, 2017) beginning January 2018 [ 24 ]. Licensed healthcare practitioners and administrators were the target population. Residents were intended to be physician or pharmacist trainees currently in a post-graduate residency program. Students were excluded from the survey. Branching logic was used to allow questions to be visible based on previous answers regarding which social media platform they use. Respondents received up to three email reminders until survey closure in May 2018. Survey respondents remained anonymous but were offered the option to enter a random drawing for an incentive upon survey completion. Co-investigators from each of the included sites were responsible for ensuring distribution to targeted healthcare practitioners. Statistical analysis Responses were analyzed to compare how different healthcare professionals are using social media and to identify the potential for educational use. Bivariate analyses were performed to examine unadjusted
variation between professional affiliation and each of the various covariates (e.g. age, access) in the survey. We conducted multivariable logistic regression to evaluate the likelihood of professionals to agree or disagree with each of the survey questions: (1) social media is an effective educational tool and (2) social media should be accessed at the workplace for educational purposes only in separate models. We chose the Likert-style question stating social media is an effective tool for educational purposes to fulfill the analysis of what factors contribute to those who use social media for educational purposes. The confounders controlled for in this analysis were age, social media access at work, and https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7004337/ Page 3 of 20 Healthcare practitioners’ views of social media as an educational resource 2/12/21, 9:38 PM profession type. These were Likert-style questions transformed to agree (yes), for all responses that were strongly agree and agree, or disagree (no), for all the responses that were strongly disagree and disagree. The answers for neither disagree or agree were not used. To account for potential selection bias due to unbalanced nurse professional response, we conducted a propensity-weighted logistic regression using age and geographical location to define the weighting class which stabilized the unbalanced nurse professional’s response. Higher propensity weights were assigned to subjects with low responses and vice versa. It is assumed that one weighting adjustment is enough to address non-response bias in all estimates [ 25 , 26 ]. A p-value of < 0.05 was deemed statistically significant. All analyses were conducted in SAS version 9.4. Results There were 1,644 initial responses, with 141 excluded due to respondents’ primary professional role(s) not being an active healthcare practitioner. Most respondents were nurses, followed by pharmacists, administrators and physicians. Among respondents, 53% were under the age of 40 and 60% had worked for 10 years or less in their current role ( Table 1 ). Of respondents with social media accounts, 43% reported using it for educational purposes, but there was a higher percent of those who agreed that social media could be an effective educational tool (85%) ( Table 2 ). Facebook® (27.2%) was the most commonly used social media platform for any purpose, followed by Pinterest® (17.4%) and Instagram® (16.6%). The social media platforms used for educational purposes differed however, as Pinterest®, Facebook®, LinkedIn® and Twitter® were the four most frequently used platforms ( Fig 1 ). Table 2 shows the use of social media for educational purposes by profession and the bivariate analysis results.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7004337/ Page 4 of 20 Healthcare practitioners’ views of social media as an educational resource 2/12/21, 9:38 PM Open in a separate window Fig 1 Survey responses to what current social media account they have and their current use of social media by platforms.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7004337/ Page 5 of 20 Healthcare practitioners’ views of social media as an educational resource 2/12/21, 9:38 PM Table 1 Baseline characteristics of respondents and social media handle. Frequency Percentage Age (n = 1,501) 20–29 359 23.92 30–39 458 30.51 40–49 316 21.05 50–59 269 17.92 60–69 92 6.13 70–79 5 0.33 >80 2 0.14 Education Years (n = 1,466) ≤ 5 Years 557 37.99 6–10 Years 318 21.69 11–15 Years 183 12.48 16–20 Years 133 9.07 ≥ 21 Years 275 18.77 Professional Affiliation (n = 1,608) Registered Nurses 1113 74.85 Open in a separate window https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7004337/ Page 6 of 20 Healthcare practitioners’ views of social media as an educational resource 2/12/21, 9:38 PM Table 2 General results by profession. Professional affiliation Residents Admin Pharmacists Nurses Physicians N % p N % p N % p N % Age < .0001 0.0014 0.0019 0.1814 20–29 36 66.67 7 7.22 38 23.60 277 25.02 30–39 16 29.63 31 31.96 66 40.99 327 29.54 14 40–49 2 3.70 33 34.02 33 20.50 222 20.05 23 50–59 0 0.00 18 18.56 11 6.83 209 18.88 16 60–69 0 0.00 8 8.25 13 8.07 67 6.05 70–79 0 0.00 0 0.00 0 0.00 3 0.27 >80 0 0.00 0 0.00 0 0.00 2 0.18
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