Opportunities and challenges of social media for health knowledge management: A narrative review

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Social media is becoming a new tool for developing health knowledge management. However, despite the rapid growth of research in this area, few attempts have been made to review previous research. This study tried to summarize the opportunities and challenges of using social media to managing health knowledge. METHODOLOGY: This article used a narrative approach to collect and review studies. In this review, published documents during 2010–2019 were retrieved by search in the following three electronic scientific databases: Web of Knowledge, PubMed, and Google Scholar search engine using keywords including social media, public health, health knowledge, knowledge management, and health promotion. RESULTS: Social media by overcoming geographical barriers, developing health promotion, facilitating decision-making, and providing public health education has been able to enhancing health awareness and improving health behavior. Doctors' unwillingness to interact with the public, lack of compliance with the principles of medical ethics, users' privacy concerns, and difficulty of managing negative comments are the four challenges to health knowledge management in social media. CONCLUSION: Social media can be a suitable tool for developing health knowledge management processes if medical professional ethics and users' privacy managed properly.

Why should we care about social media codes of conduct in healthcare organisations? A systematic literature review

“…The findings in this review support the need for codes of conduct, policies and guidelines to be established specifically for the use of social media by healthcare organisation employees (Corniati et al 2019 ; El Daouk et al 2020 ; Ghalavand et al 2020 ; Hamilton et al 2016 ; Holdsworth et al 2013 ; Khan et al 2021 ; Peek et al 2015 ; Peluchette et al 2016 ; Popper-Giveon et al 2019 ; Sweet 2012 ). With social media use in general, society is encouraged to take risks, be impulsive and be social.…”

“…However, social media allows the lines between personal and employee online presence to be blurred easily. The call for healthcare organisations to establish social media codes of conduct started a decade ago (Anderson and Guyton 2013 ; Sweet 2012 ), focusing on using social media safely (Ghalavand et al 2020 ). Healthcare organisations must develop, enforce and update policies to address appropriate and inappropriate conduct on social media, including employee agreements, orientation training, employee handbooks and performance appraisals (Suby 2013 ).…”

“…Productivity Formulate guidelines and develop a well-defined code of conduct Research article Terrasse et al 2019 Searching for patient data online Report Ahmed et al 2020 Privacy breach Adapt behaviour to the digital world Training Research article Al-Balushi 2020 Shared posts can be permanent. Inappropriate communication with patients Separate personal and employee Commentary El Daouk et al 2020 Organisational policies, best practices on managing social media Research article Ennis-O-Connor and Mannion 2020 Privacy Actively monitor your online identity Identify the goals of the organisation in the use of social media Commentary Ghalavand et al 2020 Create and use suitable codes of conduct so healthcare organisation employees can use social media safely Review article Siegmund 2020 Privacy. False information.…”

Exposure to Misinformation, Risk Perception, and Confidence towards the Government as Factors Influencing Negative Attitudes towards COVID-19 Vaccination in Malaysia

“…Studies have documented the prevalence of misinformation on health-related issues such as vaccination, pandemic, non-communicable diseases, and medical treatment [ 8 ] and its role in diverting individuals from performing correct health behaviour, including preventive behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic. Several factors, such as poor information infrastructure, lack of proper knowledge-sharing culture, and resistance to technology adaptation, remain the main challenges in dealing with misinformation [ 9 ]. Previous studies have shown that exposure to misinformation has led people to perform misguided COVID-19 preventive behaviours while discouraging them from performing the recommended ones [ 10 ].…”

Development and validation of scale for measuring attitudes towards e-professionalism among medical and dental students: SMePROF-S scale

“…The emergence of social networks sites as a new form of digital media and communication channel has brought many challenges for the health system [ 1 – 3 ]. The widespread use of social media affects the context in which professional behaviours are exhibited and how they are interpreted [ 4 ].…”