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Assessing the Viability of Social Media for Disseminating Evidence-Based Nutrition Practice Guideline Through Content Analysis of Twitter Messages and Health Professional Interviews: An Observational…

Overview of attention for article published in Journal of Medical Internet Research, November 2016
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  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • Good Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (72nd percentile)

Mentioned by

twitter
11 X users

Citations

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28 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
124 Mendeley
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1 CiteULike
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Title
Assessing the Viability of Social Media for Disseminating Evidence-Based Nutrition Practice Guideline Through Content Analysis of Twitter Messages and Health Professional Interviews: An Observational Study
Published in
Journal of Medical Internet Research, November 2016
DOI 10.2196/jmir.5811
Pubmed ID
Authors

Rosa K Hand, Deric Kenne, Taylor M Wolfram, Jenica K Abram, Michael Fleming

Abstract

Given the high penetration of social media use, social media has been proposed as a method for the dissemination of information to health professionals and patients. This study explored the potential for social media dissemination of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Evidence-Based Nutrition Practice Guideline (EBNPG) for Heart Failure (HF). The objectives were to (1) describe the existing social media content on HF, including message content, source, and target audience, and (2) describe the attitude of physicians and registered dietitian nutritionists (RDNs) who care for outpatient HF patients toward the use of social media as a method to obtain information for themselves and to share this information with patients. The methods were divided into 2 parts. Part 1 involved conducting a content analysis of tweets related to HF, which were downloaded from Twitonomy and assigned codes for message content (19 codes), source (9 codes), and target audience (9 codes); code frequency was described. A comparison in the popularity of tweets (those marked as favorites or retweeted) based on applied codes was made using t tests. Part 2 involved conducting phone interviews with RDNs and physicians to describe health professionals' attitude toward the use of social media to communicate general health information and information specifically related to the HF EBNPG. Interviews were transcribed and coded; exemplar quotes representing frequent themes are presented. The sample included 294 original tweets with the hashtag "#heartfailure." The most frequent message content codes were "HF awareness" (166/294, 56.5%) and "patient support" (97/294, 33.0%). The most frequent source codes were "professional, government, patient advocacy organization, or charity" (112/277, 40.4%) and "patient or family" (105/277, 37.9%). The most frequent target audience codes were "unable to identify" (111/277, 40.1%) and "other" (55/277, 19.9%). Significant differences were found in the popularity of tweets with (mean 1, SD 1.3 favorites) or without (mean 0.7, SD 1.3 favorites), the content code being "HF research" (P=.049). Tweets with the source code "professional, government, patient advocacy organizations, or charities" were significantly more likely to be marked as a favorite and retweeted than those without this source code (mean 1.2, SD 1.4 vs mean 0.8, SD 1.2, P=.03) and (mean 1.5, SD 1.8 vs mean 0.9, SD 2.0, P=.03). Interview participants believed that social media was a useful way to gather professional information. They did not believe that social media was useful for communicating with patients due to privacy concerns and the fact that the information had to be kept general rather than be tailored for a specific patient and the belief that their patients did not use social media or technology. Existing Twitter content related to HF comes from a combination of patients and evidence-based organizations; however, there is little nutrition content. That gap may present an opportunity for EBNPG dissemination. Health professionals use social media to gather information for themselves but are skeptical of its value when communicating with patients, particularly due to privacy concerns and misconceptions about the characteristics of social media users.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 11 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 124 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Australia 1 <1%
Unknown 123 99%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 21 17%
Researcher 13 10%
Student > Ph. D. Student 13 10%
Student > Doctoral Student 10 8%
Student > Bachelor 7 6%
Other 25 20%
Unknown 35 28%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 20 16%
Nursing and Health Professions 16 13%
Social Sciences 15 12%
Psychology 7 6%
Computer Science 6 5%
Other 17 14%
Unknown 43 35%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 6. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 07 September 2017.
All research outputs
#5,448,088
of 25,377,790 outputs
Outputs from Journal of Medical Internet Research
#3,811
of 7,867 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#80,782
of 311,954 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Journal of Medical Internet Research
#53
of 73 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,377,790 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done well and is in the 75th percentile: it's in the top 25% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 7,867 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 19.8. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 51% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 311,954 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 72% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 73 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 27th percentile – i.e., 27% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.