2916 Social Media and Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Social media has become so prevalent in our society today and it has become more widely used in the healthcare community. Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients are one of the many patient populations that benefit from social media use to obtain further information on their diseases. West Virginia (WV) is a rural state and we wanted to see what role social media played in the lives of those living there. We conducted a study in the state of WV to determine how IBD patients used social media, which sources they used, and their opinions on these resources. METHODS: Our patient population consisted of patients 18-65 years old who live in WV with a diagnosis of IBD. Surveys were sent to patients over a course of four weeks through an application called REDCap. Our survey included 17 questions and was sent to a total of 2131 patients. We used descriptive statistics to better understand social media use in our IBD population. RESULTS: We received 624 responses with a 30% response rate. When asked about using social media for medical purposes, 29.6% of patients noted that they used Facebook for information related to their IBD, while 4.3% used Instagram. All other sites were used by less than 2% of participants. The majority of patients ranked reliability of the information as neutral (44.9%) or reliable (39.3%). When comparing information obtained through social media versus from physicians, 92% of patients did not prefer information obtained through social media over their physicians and there was no difference among patients with different education levels regarding this preference (chi square P value >.05%). Most patients stated that social media had a neutral impact on their disease management (67%), while 30.3% believed it had a positive impact. Almost 55% of patients stated they wished their physician had a social media account for IBD. The most common topic of interest was treatment options. CONCLUSION: IBD patients in WV represent a rural population with more barriers to social media use, so it was interesting to see how social media was used specifically for IBD. Even in this population, patients have been able to use social media to be involved in support groups, obtain information about treatments, and hear other patient's stories. Many patients were neutral about the impact that social media had on their lives, but there were also many others that were positively affected. This stresses the importance of social media in today's world among all different populations and locations.