Social Media Use by Cardiovascular Healthcare Professionals in Portugal

• Autor(a) principal: Miguel Esteves Pereira
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://hdl.handle.net/10216/142130
• topic: Medicina clínica; Clinical medicine

Introduction and Objectives: Social Media (SoMe) has a flourishing role in cardiovascular (CV) medicine as a facilitator of academic communication not only during conferences and congresses, but also by scientific societies and journals. However, there is no solid data portraying the use of SoMe by CV healthcare professionals (CVHP) in Portugal. Hence, the main goal of this national cross-sectional survey was to accurately characterize SoMe use by Portuguese CVHP. Methods: A 35-item questionnaire was specifically developed for this study, approved by the Digital Health Study Group of the Portuguese Society of Cardiology (SPC), and sent, by e-mail, to the mailing list of the SPC (including 1293 potential recipients). Results and Conclusion: There were 206 valid answers. Fifty-two percent of respondents were female and 58% were younger than 44 years of age with almost 2 out of 3 participants being medical doctors. Ninety-two percent of the survey participants reported that they are currently using SoMe and LinkedIn was the most common platform used with professional purpose. 64.1% believed SoMe had had a positive impact in their clinical practice, 77.2% had used SoMe for acquiring information related to COVID-19, and close to 50% for sharing so. In conclusion, the majority of Portuguese CVHP that participated in this survey are actively using SoMe, with a greater participation of those below 45 years of age; its clinical impact is positive, with a leading role in the dissemination of evidence during the COVID pandemic.