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Social Media in Communicating Health Information: An Analysis of Facebook Groups Related to Hypertension

INTRODUCTION: We studied Facebook groups related to hypertension to characterize their objectives, subject matter, member sizes, geographical boundaries, level of activity, and user-generated content. METHODS: We performed a systematic search among open Facebook groups using the keywords “hypertensi...

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Autores principales: Al Mamun, Mohammad, Ibrahim, Hamza M., Turin, Tanvir Chowdhury
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4310711/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25633486
http://dx.doi.org/10.5888/pcd12.140265
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author Al Mamun, Mohammad
Ibrahim, Hamza M.
Turin, Tanvir Chowdhury
author_facet Al Mamun, Mohammad
Ibrahim, Hamza M.
Turin, Tanvir Chowdhury
author_sort Al Mamun, Mohammad
collection PubMed
description INTRODUCTION: We studied Facebook groups related to hypertension to characterize their objectives, subject matter, member sizes, geographical boundaries, level of activity, and user-generated content. METHODS: We performed a systematic search among open Facebook groups using the keywords “hypertension,” “high blood pressure,” “raised blood pressure,” and “blood pressure.” We extracted relevant data from each group’s content and developed a coding and categorizing scheme for the whole data set. Stepwise logistic regression was used to explore factors independently associated with each group’s level of activity. RESULTS: We found 187 hypertension-related Facebook groups containing 8,966 members. The main objective of most (59.9%) Facebook groups was to create hypertension awareness, and 11.2% were created primarily to support patients and caregivers. Among the top-displayed, most recent posts (n = 164), 21.3% were focused on product or service promotion, whereas one-fifth of posts were related to hypertension-awareness information. Each Facebook group’s level of activity was independently associated with group size (adjusted odds ratio [AOR], 1.02; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.01–1.03), presence of “likes” on the most recent wall post (AOR, 3.55, 95% CI, 1.41–8.92), and presence of attached files on the group wall (AOR, 5.01, 95% CI, 1.25–20.1). CONCLUSION: The primary objective of most of the hypertension-related Facebook groups observed in this study was awareness creation. Compared with the whole Facebook community, the total number of hypertension-related Facebook groups and their users was small and the groups were less active.
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spelling pubmed-43107112015-02-10 Social Media in Communicating Health Information: An Analysis of Facebook Groups Related to Hypertension Al Mamun, Mohammad Ibrahim, Hamza M. Turin, Tanvir Chowdhury Prev Chronic Dis Original Research INTRODUCTION: We studied Facebook groups related to hypertension to characterize their objectives, subject matter, member sizes, geographical boundaries, level of activity, and user-generated content. METHODS: We performed a systematic search among open Facebook groups using the keywords “hypertension,” “high blood pressure,” “raised blood pressure,” and “blood pressure.” We extracted relevant data from each group’s content and developed a coding and categorizing scheme for the whole data set. Stepwise logistic regression was used to explore factors independently associated with each group’s level of activity. RESULTS: We found 187 hypertension-related Facebook groups containing 8,966 members. The main objective of most (59.9%) Facebook groups was to create hypertension awareness, and 11.2% were created primarily to support patients and caregivers. Among the top-displayed, most recent posts (n = 164), 21.3% were focused on product or service promotion, whereas one-fifth of posts were related to hypertension-awareness information. Each Facebook group’s level of activity was independently associated with group size (adjusted odds ratio [AOR], 1.02; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.01–1.03), presence of “likes” on the most recent wall post (AOR, 3.55, 95% CI, 1.41–8.92), and presence of attached files on the group wall (AOR, 5.01, 95% CI, 1.25–20.1). CONCLUSION: The primary objective of most of the hypertension-related Facebook groups observed in this study was awareness creation. Compared with the whole Facebook community, the total number of hypertension-related Facebook groups and their users was small and the groups were less active. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2015-01-29 /pmc/articles/PMC4310711/ /pubmed/25633486 http://dx.doi.org/10.5888/pcd12.140265 Text en https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is a publication of the U.S. Government. This publication is in the public domain and is therefore without copyright. All text from this work may be reprinted freely. Use of these materials should be properly cited.
spellingShingle Original Research
Al Mamun, Mohammad
Ibrahim, Hamza M.
Turin, Tanvir Chowdhury
Social Media in Communicating Health Information: An Analysis of Facebook Groups Related to Hypertension
title Social Media in Communicating Health Information: An Analysis of Facebook Groups Related to Hypertension
title_full Social Media in Communicating Health Information: An Analysis of Facebook Groups Related to Hypertension
title_fullStr Social Media in Communicating Health Information: An Analysis of Facebook Groups Related to Hypertension
title_full_unstemmed Social Media in Communicating Health Information: An Analysis of Facebook Groups Related to Hypertension
title_short Social Media in Communicating Health Information: An Analysis of Facebook Groups Related to Hypertension
title_sort social media in communicating health information: an analysis of facebook groups related to hypertension
topic Original Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4310711/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25633486
http://dx.doi.org/10.5888/pcd12.140265
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