ArticleClinical medicine (London, England)2021
The public's attitude towards doctors' use of Twitter and perceived professionalism: an exploratory study.
Article in Clinical medicine (London, England), 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed.
- Perception of e-professionalism of doctors of medicine and doctors of dental medicine among the general population in Croatia.BMC medical ethics · 2026Article
- Patient consent in the modern era: Novel tools and practical considerations in urology.Current urology · 2025Article
- Medical Malpractice Lawsuits Against Team Physicians in the National Football League Increased Between 1971 and 2020 But Remain Low Overall.Arthroscopy, sports medicine, and rehabilitation · 2025Article
- Article
- Social media and urology: The good, the bad and the ugly.Urologia · 2024Review
- Social Media Behavior Guidelines for Healthcare Professionals: An American Society of Pain and Neuroscience NEURON Project.Journal of pain research · 2024Article
- Cross sectional study of Twitter (X) use among academic anesthesiology departments in the United States.PloS one · 2024Article
- Patient Perspectives on Kidney Stone Surgery: A Content Analysis of Instagram Posts by Patients Versus Surgeons.European urology open science · 2023Article
- Increased social media utilization and content creation by cardiothoracic surgery programs during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic.JTCVS open · 2022Article
- Twitter Usage Among Physicians From 2016 to 2020: Algorithm Development and Longitudinal Analysis Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2022Article
- Social Media and Professional Development for Oncology Professionals.JCO oncology practice · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionMedical professionals use social media to interact with other healthcare professionals, discuss medical issues and promote healthcare information. These platforms have tremendous power to promote healthcare messages but also have potential to damage the profession if used inappropriately. It is currently unknown how others perceive medical doctors' Twitter activity and, therefore, we conducted an online survey exploring these views.
methodsWe used a Google Forms questionnaire consisting of 21 questions, which we distributed on Twitter, exploring doctors', patients', the public's and other healthcare professionals' views of doctors' Twitter activities. We investigated factors that were associated with mistrust by univariate and multivariate analysis.
resultsSeven-hundred and twenty-six respondents completed the survey. By univariate analysis, a higher proportion of non-doctors reported witnessing unprofessional behaviour and potential breaches of patient confidentiality compared with doctors (p<0.01). In addition, a significantly higher proportion of non-doctors felt that doctors' Twitter accounts should be monitored by both their employer and regulator when compared with doctors. By multivariate analysis, the main predictor of mistrust in the profession were those that had previously witnessed unprofessional behaviour (odds ratio 2.70; 95% confidence interval 2.08-3.33; p<0.01).
conclusionThere are discrepancies in how doctors and non-doctors view Twitter activity and significant mistrust in the profession was brought about by doctors' Twitter activity. To help limit this, adherence to current guidelines set out by the General Medical Council and British Medical Association is vital and doctors should be cautious about how their Twitter activity is professionally perceived by others before posting.
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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.