Publication:

COVID-19 and social media: doctors' opinion

Background Several research and literature available regarding the impact of social media on healthcare are increasing and play a vital role during COVID-19 in disseminating information. Numerous studies gauging the public’s opinion are available, but minimal reports about the doctors regarding the role of social media. This current study aims to capture the view of the doctors who worked during the pandemic regarding the role of social media.

Methods This cross-sectional questionnaire-based survey study captures the opinion of doctors in India during the pandemic. A pre-tested questionnaire was circulated among doctors and the data was collected from January 2022 to November 2022. After discarding 11 incomplete responses, 389 responses were considered in the analysis based on Cochran’s formula. Simple statistical tests were used using MS Excel.

Results Out of 389 responses, 69% are Male and 28% are Female and the majority are Specialists (39%). Most of the responded doctors are in the active age group, with 36% between 30-39 years. More than 50 % of the population of doctors have zero to ten years of experience. They collectively opine that social media have more negative impacts (~70%) than positive ones (~48%) and most (72.9%) felt the need for some control/regulatory mechanism.

Conclusions The study concluded that doctors acknowledged the positive role of social media but simultaneously cautioned about the negative aspects, especially in spreading medical misinformation/infodemic and warned that social media should be used to share official information with caution.