{"title":"Examining healthcare workers' engagement with social media-based health education: Influencing factors, challenges, and future directions.","authors":"Wei Zhang, Fuxiang Guo, Weihan Cheng, Richard Evans, Magdalena Kludacz-Alessandri, Chengyan Zhu","doi":"10.1016/j.pec.2024.108577","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Social Media-based Health Education (SMHE) provides an effective way to address health disparities and improve public health literacy. Despite its inherent advantages, Healthcare Workers (HCWs) in China have showed limited and transient interest in engaging with SMHE initiatives.</p><p><strong>Objective: </strong>This study aims to examine healthcare workers' perceptions of SMHE, identifying current influencing factors, challenges, and proposing future directions for development.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>A descriptive qualitative study was conducted from October 2021 to January 2022, involving healthcare workers (i.e., physicians, nurses, and hospital administrators) engaged in SMHE. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were undertaken with 30 HCWs, which were subsequently analyzed thematically.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Thematic analysis yielded 165 initial codes, organized into 12 subcategories spanning three main themes: (1) HCWs' perceptions of SMHE, (2) drivers and barriers to HCWs' engagement with SMHE, and (3) strategies to overcome current challenges.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>This study yielded three main conclusions. First, HCWs in China exhibit a noticeable optimism toward SMHE, but most of them still have certain concerns. Second, HCWs engagement with SMHE is motivated or requested by their organizations, rather than their own initiatives. The main barriers for HCWs engagement with SMHE include: lack of time, risk of reputational loss, conflicts of interest, patient welfare, and concerns about legal issues. Third, healthcare organizations, social media platforms, and governmental bodies, must collaboratively address these issues to ensure protection for health workers engaged with SMHE.</p><p><strong>Practical value: </strong>This study finds that Chinese HCWs are willing to engage in SMHE provided they are moderately rewarded and assured of a secure environment.</p>","PeriodicalId":49714,"journal":{"name":"Patient Education and Counseling","volume":"131 ","pages":"108577"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9000,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Patient Education and Counseling","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pec.2024.108577","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2024/11/29 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"PUBLIC, ENVIRONMENTAL & OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Background: Social Media-based Health Education (SMHE) provides an effective way to address health disparities and improve public health literacy. Despite its inherent advantages, Healthcare Workers (HCWs) in China have showed limited and transient interest in engaging with SMHE initiatives.
Objective: This study aims to examine healthcare workers' perceptions of SMHE, identifying current influencing factors, challenges, and proposing future directions for development.
Methods: A descriptive qualitative study was conducted from October 2021 to January 2022, involving healthcare workers (i.e., physicians, nurses, and hospital administrators) engaged in SMHE. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were undertaken with 30 HCWs, which were subsequently analyzed thematically.
Results: Thematic analysis yielded 165 initial codes, organized into 12 subcategories spanning three main themes: (1) HCWs' perceptions of SMHE, (2) drivers and barriers to HCWs' engagement with SMHE, and (3) strategies to overcome current challenges.
Conclusion: This study yielded three main conclusions. First, HCWs in China exhibit a noticeable optimism toward SMHE, but most of them still have certain concerns. Second, HCWs engagement with SMHE is motivated or requested by their organizations, rather than their own initiatives. The main barriers for HCWs engagement with SMHE include: lack of time, risk of reputational loss, conflicts of interest, patient welfare, and concerns about legal issues. Third, healthcare organizations, social media platforms, and governmental bodies, must collaboratively address these issues to ensure protection for health workers engaged with SMHE.
Practical value: This study finds that Chinese HCWs are willing to engage in SMHE provided they are moderately rewarded and assured of a secure environment.
期刊介绍：
Patient Education and Counseling is an interdisciplinary, international journal for patient education and health promotion researchers, managers and clinicians. The journal seeks to explore and elucidate the educational, counseling and communication models in health care. Its aim is to provide a forum for fundamental as well as applied research, and to promote the study of organizational issues involved with the delivery of patient education, counseling, health promotion services and training models in improving communication between providers and patients.
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