Patient Perceptions of Social Media Use by Orthopaedic Surgeons: Comparing Responses Across the United States

Abstract

Purpose: To analyze patient perceptions of social media (SM) content posted by orthopaedic surgeons across the United States.

Methods: The SM posts of 20 professional orthopaedic surgeons with at least 500 followers and 1 post in the month before this study were reviewed and categorized. A validated survey was written to assess respondents' SM usage practices and perceptions of these categories. The survey was administered to patients in the clinics of 13 geographically diverse orthopaedic surgeons via QR code. Patient responses were analyzed for differences in SM use and perceptions of SM content types.

Results: There were 636 patient surveys completed in full. SM use was high across all age groups. In 31% of patients, SM was used to seek information related to their health care at least once per month, 45% of patients reported visiting the SM account of any physician at least a few times a year, and 29% of patients indicated that SM content is likely or very likely to influence their selection of which physician from whom to obtain care. Respondents held consistently positive views of posts providing patient education on common injuries, discussing sports team coverage, and detailing patient testimonials. Patients held consistently neutral views of posts educating colleagues, discussing physicians' attendance and presentations at national research meetings, displaying aspects of surgeons' personal lives, highlighting cases, such as radiographs, or magnetic resonance imaging, or other diagnostic imaging, and supporting marginalized groups. Finally, physicians vocalizing their political positions on SM was found to be perceived negatively.

Conclusions: In this study, 57% of patients used SM within the last year to access health care-related information. Respondents perceived SM content focused on patient education, patient testimonials, and physician coverage of athletic teams most favorably. The most widely used patient platforms include Facebook, followed by Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Twitter, and then LinkedIn.

Clinical relevance: The information from this study clarifies how patients use SM and what types of SM posts are more likely to be viewed positively, negatively, and which illicit a polarized response. This information can help further guide physicians across the United States who use social media to interact effectively with patients.

Fig 1

Frequency of social media (SM) use by patients to access information regarding their own health care. Survey results showed that 31% of respondents use SM to access information related to their health care at least once per month.

Fig 2

Frequency with which respondents view social media (SM) accounts of any physician. Roughly 33% of patients reported they do so at least once per month.

Fig 3

Likelihood of respondents to view the social media (SM) account of a physician who is currently providing them with medical care.

Fig 4

Likelihood of respondents to allow content posted on social media (SM) to influence their decision whether to see a physician.

Fig 5

Importance of having a large number of social media (SM) followers. Only 6% of respondents believe that a physician’s number of followers on SM is important or very important.

Fig 6

Percentage of respondents that view each type of physician's social media posts favorably, neutrally, or unfavorably.