Abstract
BackgroundThe use of social media by hospitals has become widespread in the United States and Western European countries. However, in Japan, the extent to which hospitals and clinics use social media is unknown. Furthermore, recent revisions to the Medical Care Act may subject social media content to regulation.ObjectiveThe purpose of this study was to examine social media use in Japanese hospitals and clinics. We investigated the adoption of social media, analyzed social media content, and compared content with medical advertising guidelines.MethodsWe randomly sampled 300 hospitals and 300 clinics from a list of medical institutions that was compiled by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. We performed web and social media (Facebook and Twitter) searches using the hospital and clinic names to determine whether they had social media accounts. We collected Facebook posts and Twitter tweets and categorized them based on their content (eg, health promotion, participation in academic meetings and publications, public relations or news announcements, and recruitment). We compared the collected content with medical advertising guidelines.ResultsWe found that 26.0% (78/300) of the hospitals and 7.7% (23/300) of the clinics used Facebook, Twitter, or both. Public relations or news announcements accounted for 53.99% (724/1341) of the Facebook posts by hospitals and 58.4% (122/209) of the Facebook posts by clinics. In hospitals, 16/1341 (1.19%) Facebook posts and 6/574 (1.0%) tweets and in clinics, 8/209 (3.8%) Facebook posts and 15/330 (4.5%) tweets could conflict medical advertising guidelines.ConclusionsFewer hospitals and clinics in Japan use social media as compared to other countries. Social media were mainly used for public relations. Some content disseminated by medical institutions could conflict with medical advertising guidelines. This study may serve as a reference for medical institutions to guide social media usage and may help improve medical website advertising in Japan.
Highlights
More than 4.5 billion people use the internet, and the number of social media users worldwide has passed the 3.8 billion mark as of the start of 2020 [1]
Some content disseminated by medical institutions could conflict with medical advertising guidelines
For the ratio of number of sample medical institutions to the actual number of medical institutions by each Regional Bureau of Labour and Welfare (Health) and Welfare, a chi-square test revealed no significant difference in hospitals (P=.268, χ27=8.791) or clinics (P=.958, χ27=2.028)
Summary
More than 4.5 billion people use the internet, and the number of social media users worldwide has passed the 3.8 billion mark as of the start of 2020 [1]. Facebook and Twitter are popular social media tools. As of the second quarter of 2020, Facebook had over 2.7 billion monthly active users (MAUs) [2]. As of the first quarter of 2019, Twitter had an average of 330 million MAUs worldwide [3]. In Japan, in 2019, Facebook had 26 million MAUs, and Twitter had about 48 million MAUs [4]. In Japan, the extent to which hospitals and clinics use social media is unknown. Recent revisions to the Medical Care Act may subject social media content to regulation
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