Characteristics of Japanese physician influencers on Twitter during the COVID-19 pandemic and fact-checking their tweets on COVID-19-related drugs.
COVID-19
Medical Informatics
SARS-CoV-2
Social Media
Social Networking Service
Journal
Postgraduate medical journal
ISSN: 1469-0756
Titre abrégé: Postgrad Med J
Pays: England
ID NLM: 0234135
Informations de publication
Date de publication:
15 Nov 2023
15 Nov 2023
Historique:
received:
09
03
2023
revised:
19
08
2023
accepted:
21
09
2023
medline:
16
11
2023
pubmed:
16
11
2023
entrez:
16
11
2023
Statut:
aheadofprint
Résumé
During the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, segments of the public relied on social media platforms such as Twitter for medical information shared by medical personnel. Although physicians are likely to disseminate more accurate information on Twitter than non-medical individuals, it cannot be taken for granted. As such, tweets written by physicians in Japan should also be scrutinized for accuracy. The purpose of this study was to create a profile of the most popular physician influencers on Twitter in Japan, and to do a fact-check of their tweets regarding COVID-19-related drugs. This is a retrospective observational study. We purchased Twitter data for Japan for the initial 9 months of the COVID-19 pandemic (from January 2020 to September 2020), and extracted tweets with keywords related to COVID-19 at a sampling rate of 3%. The most popular physicians were identified and selected consecutively by searching for the top 1000 accounts using Twitter's search function. These top accounts were considered influencers and their tweets and retweets concerning COVID-19-related drugs were fact-checked against scientific literature. We identified 21 physician influencers with real names: most were male in their 40s and 50s working at private medical facilities. The contents of their tweets were mainly sourced from scientific publications that were current at that time. The fact-check revealed that only one of 50 tweets was not correct while the others had no identifiable inaccuracies. Except for one tweet, tweets written and retweeted by Japanese physician influencers concerning the COVID-19-related drugs contained predominantly accurate information.
Sections du résumé
BACKGROUND
BACKGROUND
During the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, segments of the public relied on social media platforms such as Twitter for medical information shared by medical personnel. Although physicians are likely to disseminate more accurate information on Twitter than non-medical individuals, it cannot be taken for granted. As such, tweets written by physicians in Japan should also be scrutinized for accuracy.
PURPOSE
OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study was to create a profile of the most popular physician influencers on Twitter in Japan, and to do a fact-check of their tweets regarding COVID-19-related drugs.
DESIGN
METHODS
This is a retrospective observational study.
METHODS
METHODS
We purchased Twitter data for Japan for the initial 9 months of the COVID-19 pandemic (from January 2020 to September 2020), and extracted tweets with keywords related to COVID-19 at a sampling rate of 3%. The most popular physicians were identified and selected consecutively by searching for the top 1000 accounts using Twitter's search function. These top accounts were considered influencers and their tweets and retweets concerning COVID-19-related drugs were fact-checked against scientific literature.
RESULTS
RESULTS
We identified 21 physician influencers with real names: most were male in their 40s and 50s working at private medical facilities. The contents of their tweets were mainly sourced from scientific publications that were current at that time. The fact-check revealed that only one of 50 tweets was not correct while the others had no identifiable inaccuracies.
CONCLUSIONS
CONCLUSIONS
Except for one tweet, tweets written and retweeted by Japanese physician influencers concerning the COVID-19-related drugs contained predominantly accurate information.
Identifiants
pubmed: 37968828
pii: 7423906
doi: 10.1093/postmj/qgad098
pii:
doi:
Types de publication
Journal Article
Langues
eng
Sous-ensembles de citation
IM
Subventions
Organisme : Ministry of the Environment, Japan
Informations de copyright
© The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.