Adoption Twitter for health literacy among Saudi doctors

Abstract EN

Background: Health literacy by using social media is an accessible tool, Twitter on the top and Saudi population one of the top-ranked twitter user.

Objective: To explore the possibility of adopting Twitter as a mean to improve health literacy among Saudi doctors.

Design: Exploratory cross sectional.

Settings: Active twitter account of Saudi consultants for health literacy.

Method: We randomly collected 128 Saudi consultants’ accounts.

By SPSS, we analyzed their accounts through multiple factors including their presence on Twitter, influence, and activities.

Influence was measured by the Moz Social Authority Score and number of followers, while the activities were evaluated by number of tweets.

We compared these measurements with gender and specialties.

We excluded non-active accounts and accounts less than 500 followers.

Main outcome measures: presence, influence, and activities of physician twitters’ accounts.

Sample Size: 128 Saudi consultants’ accounts.

Results: Followers are interacting with both gender and almost all specialty.

However, we found male consultants are more popular and effective at Twitter.

The P-value for the mean of the followers is .434.

and the P-value for mean of the MozU is .968.

However, the Saudi females’ consultants more active and the P-value for the mean of number of tweets is .409.

Medical consultants are more popular and effective.

The P-value for the mean of the followers is .859 and the P-value for mean of the MozU is .057.

However, surgical consultants are more active with P-value for mean number of tweets is .808.

Conclusion: Saudi consultants notably using Twitter for health literacy.

We abled to point toward the popular and active accounts.

Moz score showed the influence as well.

We conclude to recommend formal utilization of social media with establishing appropriate regulatory rules.