P49 Exploring medical student confidence in social media health advocacy through the lens of a pandemic

Abstract

IntroductionSocial media facilitates the rapid spread of information and misinformation to the public. Medical students as healthcare professionals in training have a responsibility to support public health advocacy. As such, it is important to understand whether medical students feel comfortable to use social media as a tool to promote public health. There is little literature evaluating this. The covid-19 pandemic gives us a unique opportunity to characterise this relationship.MethodsThis is a cross sectional survey-based study run by the student surgical society at Hull York Medical School. Data will be collected on confidence of medical students in receiving, appraising and resharing information on social media. The study will first be run as a single centre study. Following data collection and analysis, will be promoted to other student surgical societies across the UK to be run as a collaborative national study.Results Primary ObjectiveHow confident are medical students in receiving, appraising and resharing information they receive on social media?: Secondary Objective: Is there a relationship between years of training or postgraduate/undergraduate status and confidence in using social media amongst medical students? How often do medical students use social media as their primary source of information? Is there adequate education on how social media can be used to combat misinformation?: Conclusion: The covid-19 pandemic allows a unique opportunity to characterise the relationship between medical students, social media, and health advocacy. Understanding this relationship will help guide medical education to incorporate social media as an effective tool in healthcare.