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
. 2020 Aug;21(8):e538-e546.
doi: 10.1097/PCC.0000000000002474.

Using Social Media for Rapid Information Dissemination in a Pandemic: #PedsICU and Coronavirus Disease 2019

Sapna R Kudchadkar  1   2   3 , Christopher L Carroll  4
Affiliations

Using Social Media for Rapid Information Dissemination in a Pandemic: #PedsICU and Coronavirus Disease 2019

Sapna R Kudchadkar et al. Pediatr Crit Care Med. 2020 Aug.

Abstract

Objective: To describe the impact of a strategy for international collaboration and rapid information dissemination on Twitter among the pediatric critical care community during a global pandemic.

Design: Analysis of #PedsICU and coronavirus disease 2019 Twitter data in the Symplur Signals Database between February 1, 2020, and May 1, 2020.

Setting: Social media platform Twitter.

Patients: None.

Interventions: Promotion of the joint usage of #PedsICU and #COVID19 throughout the international pediatric critical care community in tweets relevant to the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic and pediatric critical care.

Measurements and main results: We collected data on all tweets containing the hashtag #PedsICU in addition to those containing both #PedsICU and coronavirus disease 2019 hashtags. Tweets including #PedsICU were shared 49,865 times on six continents between February 1, 2020, and May 1, 2020; between February 1 and March 13, only 8% of #PedsICU tweets included a coronavirus disease 2019 hashtag. After a sharp rise during the week of March 14, 2020, coronavirus disease 2019 content has dominated the #PedsICU conversation on Twitter, comprising 69% of both #PedsICU tweets and impressions (p < 0.001). The most commonly used coronavirus disease 2019 hashtag over the study period was #COVID19 (69%). Proportionately, a greater percentage of #PedsICU tweets including the coronavirus disease 2019 hashtag (vs not) had images or videos (45% vs 41%; p < 0.001). In addition, non-physician healthcare providers were the largest group of users (46%) of the combination of #PedsICU and coronavirus disease 2019 hashtags. The most popular tweets shared on Twitter were open-access resources, including links for updated literature, narrative reviews, and educational videos relevant to coronavirus disease 2019 clinical care. Concurrent hashtags and words in tweets containing #PedsICU and coronavirus disease 2019 hashtags spanned several different disciplines and topics in pediatric critical care.

Conclusion: Twitter has been used widely for real-time information sharing and collaboration among the international pediatric critical care community during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. Targeted use of #PedsICU and #COVID19 for engagement on Twitter is a conduit to combat misinformation and optimize reach to pediatric critical care stakeholders across the globe when rapid dissemination is needed.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors have disclosed that they do not have any potential conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Network analysis of users tweeting with both #PedsICU and a coronavirus disease 2019–related hashtag. The size and density of a node proportionally reflect the average amount of time a participant/user spends in conversation, and the arrows reflect the conversational connections between nodes.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Geographic distribution of participants tweeting with both #PedsICU and a coronavirus disease 2019 hashtag.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Tweets (A), impressions (B), and users (C) per week for #PedsICU and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) hashtags (February 1, 2020, to May 1, 2020). NHS = National Health Service, SCCM = Society of Critical Care Medicine, WHO = World Health Organization.
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
Most common other hashtags and words included in tweets with #PedsICU and coronavirus disease 2019 hashtags.
Figure 5.
Figure 5.
Tweet with highest engagement during the study period illustrating use of #PedsICU and coronavirus disease 2019 hashtags.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center: Johns Hopkins COVID-19 Dashboard. Available at: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html. Accessed May 6, 2020.
    1. Zhu N, Zhang D, Wang W, et al. ; China Novel Coronavirus Investigating and Research Team: A novel coronavirus from patients with pneumonia in China, 2019. N Engl J Med 2020; 382:727–733 - PMC - PubMed
    1. Tegtmeyer K, Conway EE, Jr, Upperman JS, et al. ; Task Force for Pediatric Emergency Mass Critical Care: Education in a pediatric emergency mass critical care setting. Pediatr Crit Care Med 2011; 12:S135–S140 - PubMed
    1. Ravikumar N, Nallasamy K, Bansal A, et al. ; Intensive Care Chapter of Indian Academy of Pediatrics: Novel coronavirus 2019 (2019-nCoV) infection: Part I—preparedness and management in the pediatric intensive care unit in resource-limited settings. Indian Pediatr 2020; 57:324–334 - PMC - PubMed
    1. Ong JSM, Tosoni A, Kim Y, et al. Coronavirus disease 2019 in critically ill children: A narrative review of the literature. Pediatr Crit Care Med 2020. April 7. [online ahead of print] - PMC - PubMed

Publication types