Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2010 Apr;38(3):182-8.
doi: 10.1016/j.ajic.2009.11.004.

Dissemination of health information through social networks: twitter and antibiotics

Daniel Scanfeld  1 , Vanessa Scanfeld, Elaine L Larson
Affiliations

Dissemination of health information through social networks: twitter and antibiotics

Daniel Scanfeld et al. Am J Infect Control. 2010 Apr.

Abstract

Background: This study reviewed Twitter status updates mentioning "antibiotic(s)" to determine overarching categories and explore evidence of misunderstanding or misuse of antibiotics.

Methods: One thousand Twitter status updates mentioning antibiotic(s) were randomly selected for content analysis and categorization. To explore cases of potential misunderstanding or misuse, these status updates were mined for co-occurrence of the following terms: "cold + antibiotic(s)," "extra + antibiotic(s)," "flu + antibiotic(s)," "leftover + antibiotic(s)," and "share + antibiotic(s)" and reviewed to confirm evidence of misuse or misunderstanding.

Results: Of the 1000 status updates, 971 were categorized into 11 groups: general use (n = 289), advice/information (n = 157), side effects/negative reactions (n = 113), diagnosis (n = 102), resistance (n = 92), misunderstanding and/or misuse (n = 55), positive reactions (n = 48), animals (n = 46), other (n = 42), wanting/needing (n = 19), and cost (n = 8). Cases of misunderstanding or abuse were identified for the following combinations: "flu + antibiotic(s)" (n = 345), "cold + antibiotic(s)" (n = 302), "leftover + antibiotic(s)" (n = 23), "share + antibiotic(s)" (n = 10), and "extra + antibiotic(s)" (n = 7).

Conclusion: Social media sites offer means of health information sharing. Further study is warranted to explore how such networks may provide a venue to identify misuse or misunderstanding of antibiotics, promote positive behavior change, disseminate valid information, and explore how such tools can be used to gather real-time health data.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Potential conflicts of interest. All authors: no conflicts.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Word Cloud
This word cloud depicts the 150 most frequently utilized words within the 1000 status updates analyzed for this study. Each word’s frequency is correlated with font size. Source: http://www.wordle.net. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment in

References

    1. Hughes B, Joshi I, Wareham J. Health 2.0 and Medicine 2.0: tensions and controversies in the field. J Med Internet Res. 2008;10(3):e23. - PMC - PubMed
    1. The Experts vs. the Amateurs: A Tug of War over the Future of Media. Knowledge@Wharton 2009. 2008. Mar 19, [cited 2009 April 17]. Available from: http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1921.
    1. Edelman . Edelman; 2009. 2009 Edelman Trust Barometer.
    1. Moturu ST, Liu H, Johnson WG. Trust evaluation in health information on the World Wide Web. Conf Proc IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc 2008; 2008. pp. 1525–1528. - PubMed
    1. Fox S, Jones S. The Social Life of Health Information. Pew Internet & American Life Project. 2009

Publication types

MeSH terms

Substances