ArticleAcademic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine2021
Emergency Physicians and Personal Narratives Improve the Perceived Effectiveness of COVID-19 Public Health Recommendations on Social Media: A Randomized Experiment.
Article in Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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
16 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Overcoming health misinformation in marginalized groups: a systematic review.International journal for equity in health · 2025Pooled it
- The role of social media on COVID-19 preventive behaviors worldwide, systematic review.PloS one · 2024Pooled it
- Factors Associated with the Implementation of Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions for Reducing Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19): A Systematic Review.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Pooled it
- A Stepped-Wedge Social Media Training Intervention for Community Health Workers In Spanish-Speaking Communities: A Study Protocol for Dime La VerDAD.Research square · 2026Article
- Article
- Communicating and complying with COVID-19 actions in northernmost Finland.International journal of circumpolar health · 2024Article
- A cross-sectional study of policies from American medical organizations about public communications from physicians in the digital age.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- A Scoping Review of Physician Advocacy on Twitter.Cureus · 2023Article
- The choice of message and messenger to drive behavior change that averts the health impacts of wildfires: an online randomized controlled experiment.BMC public health · 2022Article
- Empowering Health Care Workers on Social Media to Bolster Trust in Science and Vaccination During the Pandemic: Making IMPACT Using a Place-Based Approach.Journal of medical Internet research · 2022Article
- Vaccine Hesitancy and Exposure to Misinformation: a Survey Analysis.Journal of general internal medicine · 2022Article
- The applications of eHealth technologies in the management of asthma and allergic diseases.Clinical and translational allergy · 2021Review
- Health Information Seeking Behaviors on Social Media During the COVID-19 Pandemic Among American Social Networking Site Users: Survey Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2021Article
- Emergency Physicians and Personal Narratives Improve the Perceived Effectiveness of COVID-19 Public Health Recommendations on Social Media: A Randomized Experiment.Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine · 2021Article
- Use of bot and content flags to limit the spread of misinformation among social networks: a behavior and attitude survey.Social network analysis and mining · 2021Article
- Negative COVID-19 Vaccine Information on Twitter: Content Analysis.JMIR infodemiologyArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundContainment of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic requires the public to change behavior under social distancing mandates. Social media are important information dissemination platforms that can augment traditional channels communicating public health recommendations. The objective of the study was to assess the effectiveness of COVID-19 public health messaging on Twitter when delivered by emergency physicians and containing personal narratives.
methodsOn April 30, 2020, we randomly assigned 2,007 U.S. adults to an online survey using a 2 × 2 factorial design. Participants rated one of four simulated Twitter posts varied by messenger type (emergency physician vs. federal official) and content (personal narrative vs. impersonal guidance). The main outcomes were perceived message effectiveness (35-point scale), perceived attitude effectiveness (PAE; 15-point scale), likelihood of sharing Tweets (7-point scale), and writing a letter to their governor to continue COVID-19 restrictions (write letter or none).
resultsThe physician/personal (PP) message had the strongest effect and significantly improved all main messaging outcomes except for letter writing. Unadjusted mean differences between PP and federal/impersonal (FI) were as follows: perceived messaging effectiveness (3.2 [95% CI = 2.4 to 4.0]), PAE (1.3 [95% CI = 0.8 to 1.7]), and likelihood of sharing (0.4 [95% CI = 0.15 to 0.7]). For letter writing, PP made no significant impact compared to FI (odds ratio = 1.14 [95% CI = 0.89 to 1.46]).
conclusionsEmergency physicians sharing personal narratives on Twitter are perceived to be more effective at communicating COVID-19 health recommendations compared to federal officials sharing impersonal guidance.
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.