ArticleJournal of medical Internet research2014
Mapping physician Twitter networks: describing how they work as a first step in understanding connectivity, information flow, and message diffusion.
Article in Journal of medical Internet research, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed.
- Scrolling surgeons: Assessment of social media and artificial intelligence usage in gynecologic oncology fellows and fellowship programs.Gynecologic oncology reports · 2025Article
- Digital haemophilia: Insights into the use of social media for haemophilia care, research and advocacy.Haemophilia : the official journal of the World Federation of Hemophilia · 2022Article
- Association of Twitter Metrics and Cardiology and Heart Surgery National Hospital Rankings.Mayo Clinic proceedings. Innovations, quality & outcomes · 2022Article
- Going viral: A scoping review of the current state and impact of online research dissemination in emergency medicine.AEM education and training · 2022Article
- Social media analysis of Twitter tweets related to ASD in 2019-2020, with particular attention to COVID-19: topic modelling and sentiment analysis.Journal of big data · 2022Article
- Pulse of the pandemic: Iterative topic filtering for clinical information extraction from social media.Journal of biomedical informatics · 2021Article
- Emergency Physician Twitter Use in the COVID-19 Pandemic as a Potential Predictor of Impending Surge: Retrospective Observational Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2021Observational
- Measures of the Degree of Departure from Ignorable Sample Selection.Journal of survey statistics and methodology · 2020Article
- Effects of Health Information Dissemination on User Follows and Likes during COVID-19 Outbreak in China: Data and Content Analysis.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2020Article
- Correlations Between Hospitals' Social Media Presence and Reputation Score and Ranking: Cross-Sectional Analysis.Journal of medical Internet research · 2018Article
- Health Care Professionals' Social Media Behavior and the Underlying Factors of Social Media Adoption and Use: Quantitative Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2018Article
- Reach of Messages in a Dental Twitter Network: Cohort Study Examining User Popularity, Communication Pattern, and Network Structure.Journal of medical Internet research · 2018Article
- Patient Participation at Health Care Conferences: Engaged Patients Increase Information Flow, Expand Propagation, and Deepen Engagement in the Conversation of Tweets Compared to Physicians or Researchers.Journal of medical Internet research · 2017Article
- Preliminary Evidence for the Emergence of a Health Care Online Community of Practice: Using a Netnographic Framework for Twitter Hashtag Analytics.Journal of medical Internet research · 2017Article
- Patterns of Twitter Behavior Among Networks of Cannabis Dispensaries in California.Journal of medical Internet research · 2017Article
- How Health Care Professionals Use Social Media to Create Virtual Communities: An Integrative Review.Journal of medical Internet research · 2016Review
- The Impact of Online Social Networks on Health and Health Systems: A Scoping Review and Case Studies.Policy & internet · 2015Article
- A Digital Ethnography of Medical Students who Use Twitter for Professional Development.Journal of general internal medicine · 2015Article
- What are health-related users tweeting? A qualitative content analysis of health-related users and their messages on twitter.Journal of medical Internet research · 2014Article
- Social media, public scholarship, and injury prevention.The western journal of emergency medicine · 2014Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundTwitter is becoming an important tool in medicine, but there is little information on Twitter metrics. In order to recommend best practices for information dissemination and diffusion, it is important to first study and analyze the networks.
objectiveThis study describes the characteristics of four medical networks, analyzes their theoretical dissemination potential, their actual dissemination, and the propagation and distribution of tweets.
methodsOpen Twitter data was used to characterize four networks: the American Medical Association (AMA), the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), and the American College of Physicians (ACP). Data were collected between July 2012 and September 2012. Visualization was used to understand the follower overlap between the groups. Actual flow of the tweets for each group was assessed. Tweets were examined using Topsy, a Twitter data aggregator.
resultsThe theoretical information dissemination potential for the groups is large. A collective community is emerging, where large percentages of individuals are following more than one of the groups. The overlap across groups is small, indicating a limited amount of community cohesion and cross-fertilization. The AMA followers' network is not as active as the other networks. The AMA posted the largest number of tweets while the AAP posted the fewest. The number of retweets for each organization was low indicating dissemination that is far below its potential.
conclusionsTo increase the dissemination potential, medical groups should develop a more cohesive community of shared followers. Tweet content must be engaging to provide a hook for retweeting and reaching potential audience. Next steps call for content analysis, assessment of the behavior and actions of the messengers and the recipients, and a larger-scale study that considers other medical groups using Twitter.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.