ReviewDigital health
Better understanding the ethical and social issues associated with social media uses in physiotherapy: A critical interpretive synthesis.
Review in Digital health. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Introduction: Social media uses by physiotherapists are proliferating (e.g. interprofessional collaboration, publicity, information dissemination). While offering opportunities for health democratization, these practices raise ethical and social issues such as cyberincivility and digital literacy-related inequalities, necessitating deeper ethical and social reflection in physiotherapy. Critical literature reviews are useful to develop an evidence-informed theoretical framework to inform ethical reflections. Methods: This review employed critical interpretive synthesis to examine ethical and social issues in physiotherapists' social media uses, searching Medline, Embase, CINAHL, and Web of Science (2000-2025), yielding relevant studies via PRISMA-guided screening. Inductive data extraction and analysis were used to generate synthetic constructs through iterative critique, integrating evidence from empirical and non-empirical studies on this topic. Results: Out of 4547 studies, 28 included studies reveal eight key ethical and social issues in physiotherapists social media uses: privacy concerns and confidentiality, conflict of interest and transparency, cyberincivility and professional misconduct, risks of blurred boundaries between professional and personal spheres, power imbalance during digital interactions with vulnerable populations, risks of uncontrollable and overloaded digital information dissemination, disinformation and misinformation in professional online communication, and risks of jeopardizing intellectual property rights. The resulting conceptual framework prompts reflection on developing digital professionalism in physiotherapy centred on cybercivility and accountability. Fostering digital professionalism requires training professionals and students with digital literacy as a core competency and developing and disseminating clear guidelines. Conclusion: This review proposes deeper ethical reflections on social media uses in physiotherapy. It emphasizes the need for empirical research to address gaps, enhance reflexivity, and advance digital professionalism.
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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.