Social Media Use among Paediatricians in Abu Dhabi: Purposes, Attitudes and Interactions

Background: Recently, social media (SM) platforms have emerged as a source of communication within healthcare. There is limited knowledge about the use of SM with regards to physician-physician and patient-physician interactions.

Objective: Our aim is to explore SM usage among paediatricians and paediatric residents in Abu Dhabi. We also aimed to determine paediatricians attitudes towards engaging with patients and colleagues.

Methods: This is a cross sectional study conducted among paediatricians in Abu Dhabi Government hospitals. A self-administered questionnaire, covering the study objectives, was used. Results were statistically analyzed using SPSS 22.0. All p-values of less than 0.05 were considered significant.

Results: Of total 129 paediatricians involved, 97% were using SM. There were 47% residents, 34% specialists and 19% consultants. The most used platforms were WhatsApp (100%), You Tube (80%), Facebook (56%) and Instagram (56%).The majority of the paediatricians (66.4%) used SM for both personal and professional purposes. They mainly used SM to engage in continuous medical education (82.6%) and to communicate with colleagues (74.4%). However, only 18% used SM to interact with patients and their families. Residents were more likely to use SM for educational purposes (P=0.018), whereas consultants were more confident in using SM for patient communication (P=0.014). Moreover, consultants were more interested in interacting with their patients through webinars over SM compared to their junior colleagues (P= 0.045). Furthermore; 11% of the involved paediatricians had a separate professional profile for patient communication. Most of them,75.2% (n=97), never accepted SM friendship request from patients or their parents, but those who accepted were mainly consultants (P=0.035). Most of the participants (81%, n=105) believed it is essential to develop policies on SM usage for healthcare workers.

Conclusion: Almost all paediatricians and paediatric residents in Abu Dhabi are using SM for different purposes. There is a necessity to reinforce policies and guidelines regulating SM use including physician-patient interaction. Future research should focus on understanding the positive and negative impacts of SM on the quality of patient care.