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. 2021 Apr 20;23(4):e24586.
doi: 10.2196/24586.

"Ask a Doctor About Coronavirus": How Physicians on Social Media Can Provide Valid Health Information During a Pandemic

Dorthe Furstrand  1 , Andreas Pihl  2   3 , Elif Bayram Orbe  4 , Natasja Kingod  5 , Jens Søndergaard  3
Affiliations

"Ask a Doctor About Coronavirus": How Physicians on Social Media Can Provide Valid Health Information During a Pandemic

Dorthe Furstrand et al. J Med Internet Res. .

Abstract

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the information stream has overflowed with accurate information, misinformation, and constantly changing guidelines. There is a great need for guidance on the identification of trustworthy health information, and official channels are struggling to keep pace with this infodemic. Consequently, a Facebook group was created where volunteer medical physicians would answer laypeople's questions about the 2019 novel coronavirus. There is not much precedence in health care professional-driven Facebook groups, and the framework was thus developed continuously. We ended up with an approach without room for debate, which fostered a sense of calmness, trust, and safety among the questioners. Substantial moderator effort was needed to ensure high quality and consistency through collaboration among the presently >200 physicians participating in this group. At the time of writing, the group provides a much-needed service to >58,000 people in Denmark during this crisis.

Keywords: COVID-19; Facebook; coronavirus; digital health literacy; eHealth literacy; framework; health information; health literacy; health promotion; infodemic; infodemiology; mental health; misinformation; pandemic; patient-physician relationship; public health; social media; trust; web-based community.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest: None declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
A screenshot from the Facebook group, “Spørg en læge om coronavirus,” which literally translates to “Ask a doctor about coronavirus.”.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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