ArticleBMC oral health2021
Pattern of dental needs and advice on Twitter during the COVID-19 pandemic in Saudi Arabia.
Article in BMC oral health, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 9 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- A mixed-method analysis to identify the current focus, trends, and gaps in health science research in Saudi Arabia.Frontiers in public health · 2022Pooled it
- Sentiment and emotion analysis of dental pain posts on X (formerly Twitter).The Saudi dental journal · 2026Article
- The Use of the X Platform (Formerly Twitter) by Saudi Dental Societies: A Content and Engagement Analysis.Clinical, cosmetic and investigational dentistry · 2025Article
- Instagram's impact on dental consumers: analyzing toothpaste hashtags.Frontiers in oral health · 2024Article
- Health education and promotion of #PhysicalActivity on Twitter before and during COVID-19.Health education journal · 2023Article
- Sociobehavioural Factors Associated With Child Oral Health During COVID-19.International dental journal · 2023Article
- The Use of Instagram Among Dental Patients in Saudi Arabia.Acta informatica medica : AIM : journal of the Society for Medical Informatics of Bosnia & Herzegovina : casopis Drustva za medicinsku informatiku BiH · 2023Article
- Article
- Correction to: Pattern of dental needs and advice on Twitter during the COVID-19 pandemic in Saudi Arabia.BMC oral health · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
aimTo compare and evaluate the influence of the COVID-19 outbreak on tweets related to dental treatment needs and advice of Saudi Twitter users in 2020 by comparing them to the same time-period in 2019.
methodsEight independent searches based on dentistry related keywords: "teeth, mouth and gingiva" were carried out within the timeframe between the 23rd of March and the 21st of June for the years 2020 and 2019. Extracted tweets were analyzed by two calibrated examiners as tweets containing expressed dental needs and tweets for dental advice, while spam tweets were excluded. Descriptive analysis was performed to present the overview of the findings using SPSS. Bivariate analysis was performed with Pearson's Chi Square, Fisher's Exact test and Mann-Whitney U test. Statistical significance was set at p ≤ 0.05.
resultsA total of 595 tweets from the year 2019 and 714 tweets from the year 2020 were obtained. Overall, combined dental needs and advice tweets, retweets, likes, and replies were higher in 2020 compared to 2019. Dental needs tweets were higher in 2020 compared to 2019, while dental advice tweets were lower in 2020 compared to 2019. Statistically significant differences were found between 2020 and 2019 with regards to dental needs well as with dental advice (p < 0.05). In addition, statistically significant differences were found between 2019 and 2020 with presence of pain, urgency of the dental need and type of advisor (p < 0.05).
conclusionAn obvious impact of the pandemic can be seen in the form of increased self-reported dental needs, pain and urgency among the public in Saudi Arabia. This study highlights the importance of social media, specifically Twitter, in expressing the public needs and utilizing it as a platform for education and advice.
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