The use of social media for professional purposes by healthcare professionals: the #intEHRAct survey

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

  • Federico Guerra
  • Dr Linz, Dominik Karl
  • Rodrigue Garcia
  • Varvara Kommata
  • Jedrzej Kosiuk
  • Julian Chun
  • Serge Boveda
  • David Duncker

Social media (SoMe) represents a medium of communication in everyday life and has gained importance for professional use among clinicians. In the #intEHRAct survey, we aimed to describe the use of SoMe by the healthcare community in a professional setting. The EHRA e-Communication Committee and the Scientific Initiatives Committee prepared a questionnaire and distributed it via newsletters, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. The survey consisted of 19 questions made on an individual basis and collected anonymously. Two hundred and eighty-five responders from 35 countries (72.3% male, age 49 ± 11 years old) completed the survey. Most respondents (42.7%) declared to use SoMe as passive users while 38.3% and 19.0% declared to share content on a non-daily and daily basis, respectively. The respondents estimated they spent a median of 5 (Q1-Q3: 2-10) h per week on SoMe. The most widely used SoMe was LinkedIn (60.8%), but the use of each platform was heterogeneous between countries. Among the advantages of SoMe, respondents indicated the chance of being updated on recent publications (66.0%), networking (48.5%), and the availability of rare or interesting cases (47.9%) as the most useful. Regarding the disadvantages of SoMe, the respondents underlined the loss of personal contact (40.7%), the inability to get 'hands-on' training (38.7%), and the lack of control regarding quality of scientific evidence (37.1%). Social media is increasingly used for professional purposes for scientific updating, networking, and case-based learning. The results of this survey encourage scientific societies, journals, and authors to enhance the quality, reach and impact of scientific content provided through SoMe.

Original languageEnglish
JournalEuropace
Volume24
Issue number4
Pages (from-to)691-696
Number of pages6
ISSN1099-5129
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2022

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Published on behalf of the European Society of Cardiology. All rights reserved.

    Research areas

  • EHRA survey, Healthcare communication, Healthcare education, Networking, Social media

ID: 316676495