Use of Social Media Tools during COVID-19 Pandemic Among MS Fellowships and Patients

BACKGROUND: There was no evidence about how COVID-19 can affect the neuroimmunological situation in patients who use immunosuppressive or immunomodulatory medications at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in June 2020. Many concerns have arisen among clinicians regarding the management of Multiple Sclerosis (MS) secondary to different limitations applied during this period including the closure of clinics, quarantine, and difficulty for face-to-face communication. Considering this, the potential use of social media in patient-physician communication has been addressed in this study. MATERIAL(S) AND METHOD(S): In a cross-sectional study, potential effect of available social media technologies on the communication between patients with MS and MS fellowships at the time of the COVID-19 outbreak in Iran in 2020 has been evaluated. Two questionnaires were designed, one for patients and another for MS fellowships. Data were gathered and results were analyzed by SPSS 23.0 software. RESULT(S): Of 1700 patients, 408 answered the questionnaire wholly. Most of them used mobile for their medical connection (77.4%). Patients with Relapsing-Remitting had more connections with their doctors (p=0.045). Although MS patients preferred to visit their doctors in person and have face-to-face contact, COVID-19 infectious MS fellowships used social media technologies to solve most patients' problems, answer their questions, and help them stop worrying, and only visited emergency patients in MS clinics by following disease control strategy. CONCLUSION(S): Social media could help patients and neurologists to solve most problems without in-person visits during the COVID-19 pandemic.