Article type
Year
Abstract
Background: Social Media (SM) are performing a more important status in life day by day. The habitude of using them, and particularly Instagram (IG), by health care workers, not only in free time but also for work reasons, is growing as an answer to an increased number of scientific influencers and institutions who spread evidence by these tools. At the same time, it seems that researching literature on standard databases has become more complicated due to many barriers (Leach & Gillham, 2008) and identified often as poorness of resources and clinicians skills in evidence-based practice (EBP). This cannot guarantee the optimal clinical practice by the health care provider.
Objectives: Describing the new phenomenon of knowledge translation and dissemination of evidence to a wider public of health care workers through Instagram.
Methods: We’ve conducted an ecological study. Through the “Evidence For Health” Instagram page, born on November, 11th 2019, we posted an IG tailored size image in English, at least once a week, in which is described some evidence from guidelines, systematic reviews or other scientific articles. We divided the posts into six topics, everyone characterized by color for an immediate recognization, but all similar for graphic and logos. Each post is shared with related hashtags (#EvidenceForHealth) and tags of involved Institutions. We also supported the most important world health campaigns. Instagram Stories are used to interact with followers. We analyzed the data with the Instagram statistic tool and a spreadsheet. No ads or paid promotions have been done to increment the page visibility.
Results: At April, 4th 2020 followers are 528, with an increment of 402% from January, 7th 2020. They are mostly from Brazil (24%), Italy (16%), UK (15%), USA (10% ), Australia (3%); mostly women (68%), between 25-34 age years old (52%). Overall, 91% of the total followers are between 18 and 44 years old. Medium reach per post: 473 views.
Conclusions: The optimum increment of followers reveals that sharing scientific good quality materials on IG could be a good way to share evidence. Simpleness in text and graphic clarity make reading and appraising evidence intuitive, quick and accessible by most. In-depth analysis of contents is also possible, thanks to the always quoted sources. Limits of this study are the observational design, which makes impossible to define how much SM disseminated evidence is implemented in clinical practice, and the practical issue of the followers as a real health care workers because the IG statistic cannot permit to analyze users’ profiles. Qualitative and analytic research is needed to assess the value of this method. In conclusion, we can affirm that Instagram could be a new method to share and disseminate evidence quickly worldwide.
Patient or healthcare consumer involvement: The more healthcare workers will use EBP, the more patients will be involved in healthcare. We are trustful that using Social Media to diffuse evidence-based practice is a valid method to achieve that.
Objectives: Describing the new phenomenon of knowledge translation and dissemination of evidence to a wider public of health care workers through Instagram.
Methods: We’ve conducted an ecological study. Through the “Evidence For Health” Instagram page, born on November, 11th 2019, we posted an IG tailored size image in English, at least once a week, in which is described some evidence from guidelines, systematic reviews or other scientific articles. We divided the posts into six topics, everyone characterized by color for an immediate recognization, but all similar for graphic and logos. Each post is shared with related hashtags (#EvidenceForHealth) and tags of involved Institutions. We also supported the most important world health campaigns. Instagram Stories are used to interact with followers. We analyzed the data with the Instagram statistic tool and a spreadsheet. No ads or paid promotions have been done to increment the page visibility.
Results: At April, 4th 2020 followers are 528, with an increment of 402% from January, 7th 2020. They are mostly from Brazil (24%), Italy (16%), UK (15%), USA (10% ), Australia (3%); mostly women (68%), between 25-34 age years old (52%). Overall, 91% of the total followers are between 18 and 44 years old. Medium reach per post: 473 views.
Conclusions: The optimum increment of followers reveals that sharing scientific good quality materials on IG could be a good way to share evidence. Simpleness in text and graphic clarity make reading and appraising evidence intuitive, quick and accessible by most. In-depth analysis of contents is also possible, thanks to the always quoted sources. Limits of this study are the observational design, which makes impossible to define how much SM disseminated evidence is implemented in clinical practice, and the practical issue of the followers as a real health care workers because the IG statistic cannot permit to analyze users’ profiles. Qualitative and analytic research is needed to assess the value of this method. In conclusion, we can affirm that Instagram could be a new method to share and disseminate evidence quickly worldwide.
Patient or healthcare consumer involvement: The more healthcare workers will use EBP, the more patients will be involved in healthcare. We are trustful that using Social Media to diffuse evidence-based practice is a valid method to achieve that.