Abstract
During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, social service agencies (SSAs) play a crucial role in supporting renal patients, who are particularly vulnerable to infections. Social media platforms such as Facebook, serves as an effective medium for these SSAs to disseminate information. Content analysis of the SSAs’ Facebook posts can provide insights on whether Facebook has been adequately utilized during the COVID-19 pandemic and enable SSAs to improve their social media use in future pandemics. This study aimed to compare renal-related SSAs’ Facebook post content before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Facebook posts of three SSAs National Kidney Foundation (NKF), Kidney Dialysis Foundation (KDF), and Muslim Kidney Action Association (MKAC), posted during the pre-COVID-19 period (January 23, 2019 to June 2, 2019) and the peri-COVID-19 period (January 23, 2020 to June 1, 2020) were extracted. A classification scheme was developed by two coders with themes derived inductively and deductively. Each Facebook post was assigned with a theme. Quantitative analyses indicate that the number of Facebook posts increased from 115 in the pre-COVID-19 period to 293 in the peri-COVID-19 period. During peri-COVID-19, posts regarding lifestyle changes, donations and infectious disease surfaced. While the proportion of posts about encouraging kindness increased from one to 77 posts, the proportion of posts about community-based events and psychosocial support decreased from 44 to 15 posts and 17 to 10 posts respectively during the two periods. Facebook was found to be well-utilized by two of the three renal SSAs in engaging their beneficiaries during the pandemic. During future pandemics, renal SSAs should place emphasis on posts related to psychosocial support and encouraging kindness. Further studies are required to ascertain the impact of COVID-19 from the perspective of renal patients and also to validate the classification scheme which was developed in this study. The study’s methodology and classification scheme can be used to guide future studies for evaluating the social media outreach performance of renal health support groups.
Highlights
Social service agencies (SSAs) provide direct services to citizens at either public or private level in non-profit settings
Compared to the pre-COVID-19 period, the number of posts were higher during the peri-COVID-19 period for National Kidney Foundation (NKF) and Muslim Kidney Action Association (MKAC) but not for Kidney Dialysis Foundation (KDF)
Facebook was found to be a valuable platform for renal SSAs to engage their beneficiaries, who are vulnerable to infections, during a pandemic
Summary
Social service agencies (SSAs) provide direct services to citizens at either public or private level in non-profit settings. These services are aimed at avoidance, improvement and resolution of issues pertaining to physical health, mental health, society and environment (Gibelman, 2005). In Singapore, SSAs are under the purview of National Council of Social Service (NCSS) which is a statutory board governed by the Ministry of Social and Family Development (National Council of Social Service, 2021). NCSS helps SSAs with funding, manpower and capacity building. There are more than 400 SSAs in Singapore who are registered with NCSS (Directory of NCSS Members, 2021), providing support to the citizens for a range of issues. In light of the emergence of social media platforms, SSAs are encouraged to follow NCSS guidelines (MSF, 2021) and engage with donors in such platforms (NCSS, 2019)
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