ReviewDigital health
UK policy on social networking sites and online health: From informed patient to informed consumer?
Review in Digital health. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed.
- Social Support Mechanisms in an Online Type 1 Diabetes Community: Social Network Analysis of Stakeholder Diversity and Disease Duration.Journal of medical Internet research · 2026Observational
- 'The tabloid test': a qualitative interview study on the function and purpose of termination of pregnancy review committees in Victoria, Australia.Reproductive health · 2023Article
- Why should we care about social media codes of conduct in healthcare organisations? A systematic literature review.Zeitschrift fur Gesundheitswissenschaften = Journal of public health · 2023Review
- Defining Digital Public Health and the Role of Digitization, Digitalization, and Digital Transformation: Scoping Review.JMIR public health and surveillance · 2021Article
- The work and relatedness of ties mediated online in supporting long-term condition self-management.Sociology of health & illness · 2020Article
- GMO/GMF on Social Media in China: Jagged Landscape of Information Seeking and Sharing Behavior through a Valence View.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2019Article
- The role of social media in selective dorsal rhizotomy for children: information sharing and social support.Child's nervous system : ChNS : official journal of the International Society for Pediatric Neurosurgery · 2019Article
- Effect of Emotion, Expectation, and Privacy on Purchase Intention in WeChat Health Product Consumption: The Mediating Role of Trust.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2019Article
- Truth-telling and doctor-assisted death as perceived by Israeli physicians.BMC medical ethics · 2019Article
- Arthritis-Related Support in a Social Media Group for Quilting Hobbyists: Qualitative Study.Interactive journal of medical research · 2018Article
- Social media as a space for support: Young adults' perspectives on producing and consuming user-generated content about diabetes and mental health.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2016Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundSocial networking sites offer new opportunities for communication between and amongst health care professionals, patients and members of the public. In doing so, they have the potential to facilitate public access to health care information, peer-support networks, health policy fora and online consultations. Government policies and guidance from professional organisations have begun to address the potential of these technologies in the domain of health care and the responsibilities they entail for their users.
objectiveAdapting a discourse analytic framework for the analysis of policy documents, this review paper critically examines discussions of social networking sites in recent government and professional policy documents. It focuses particularly on who these organisations claim should use social media, for what purposes, and what the anticipated outcomes of use will be for patients and the organisations themselves.
conclusionRecent policy documents have configured social media as a new means with which to harvest patient feedback on health care encounters and communicate health care service information with which patients and the general public can be 'empowered' to make responsible decisions. In orienting to social media as a vehicle for enabling consumer choice, these policies encourage the marketization of health information through a greater role for non-profit and commercial organisations in the eHealth domain. At the same time, current policy largely overlooks the role of social media in mediating ongoing support and self-management for patients with long-term conditions.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.