Twitter Poll Research Articles

An innovative method to identify educational need regarding depression and anxiety as an under-recognised side effect of anti-TNF medicines

Abstract Introduction Depression and anxiety (D&A) in chronic autoimmune conditions such as Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), Rheumatoid arthritis (RA), Psoriatic arthritis (PsA), and Psoriasis (PsO) is common, with patients twice as likely to suffer from it.1 Biologic medicines are increasingly used in autoimmune conditions and are prescribed only by secondary care. Patients initiated on biologic medicines, specifically anti-TNF, can report depression and anxiety as related side effects listed as common in the summary of product characteristics2,3 and may not get investigated for this side effect when visiting GP practices and hospital reviews. This could lead to unnecessary use of psychological or psychopharmacological treatment and a poor patient experience of biologics therapies. Aim To explore healthcare professionals’ understanding of the potential adverse effects of anti-TNF medicines including D&A symptoms in patients who present to primary care. Methods A Twitter poll was used on the social media platform Twitter to raise the question; ‘GP’s, practice nurses and pharmacists, if your patient with IBD, RA, PsA, PsO etc. presents with symptoms of depression, do you check if they are prescribed a hospital only biologic such as anti-TNF (depression listed as a common side effect) as a possible cause?’. The Likert scale, Always, Sometimes, Never, Didn’t occur to me was used to elicit answers. The question was open for a 3 day window in May 2021, and then repeated in February 2022. A national webinar (advertised for anyone to attend) was held to present these results, and two further questions were asked of the participants using Slido; ‘are you surprised at this figure of 60%?’ and ‘do you think that something needs to be done about this?’ with a yes or no response option. Ethical approval was not required for this service evaluation. Results The results from the Twitter poll in May 2021, had 38 votes, the summary of the responses were 2(5%) [Always], 5 (13%) [Sometimes], 8 (21%) [Never] and 23 (61%) [Didn’t occur to me]. Results from the second poll in February 2022 had 217 votes and responses were 27(12%) [Always], 33(15%) [Sometimes], 23(10%) [Never] and 134(63%) [Didn’t occur to me]. Of the 150 people who attended the webinar, 99 (66%) were not surprised and 100% thought something needs to be done about it. Discussion/Conclusion This innovative if not scientific method (Twitter and Slido) of surveying HCPs, identified a considerable lack of awareness of the D&A side effects of biologics and uncovered a gap in monitoring of vulnerable patients. This suggests the need for education of HCPs about this issue. Awareness can also be increased through patient education, appropriate counselling, and patient information leaflets. Empowering patients to ask if the hospital prescribed medication is on their GP medication list and a potential cause. Twitter is a novel way to gain insight from colleagues, however responses from HCPs only are not guaranteed. This approach is a model to scope feasibility of projects, but only captures users of Twitter and is dependent on the size of the individual’s network and level of engagement by retweeting.

Student perceptions of Twitter poll-based formative assessment in a rural medical college in India.

Formative assessment is vital for student learning and engagement. Social media platforms like Twitter have gained popularity in medical education, but little research has explored student perceptions of formative assessment through Twitter. This study aimed to observe participation rates in Twitter poll-based formative assessment and survey students' perceptions of it in a rural medical college in India. Fifteen formative assessment sessions were conducted using a Twitter poll after physiology lectures, with five multiple-choice questions per session. The number of participants in each poll was recorded. A questionnaire collected student perceptions after the sessions. Across 15 Twitter poll sessions, we received an average of 12.65 ± 5.53 (median 12) responses. Most students (63%) did not participate, with only 4% participating in over 10 sessions. A total of 107 students participated in the survey, resulting in an 85.6% response rate. Students found social media-based formative assessment interesting and effective for increasing attention in class. However, they preferred alternative platforms like Telegram and Instagram for formative assessment. In conclusion, most students in a rural medical college in India do not participate in Twitter poll-based formative assessment. Nevertheless, students found it interesting and effective, highlighting the importance of considering students' platform preferences for implementing social media-based formative assessment.NEW & NOTEWORTHY The study presents the participation of medical students in Twitter poll-based formative assessment in a rural medical college in India. Despite low participation rates, students found social media-based formative assessment highly effective in increasing their attention during class. The study also reveals student preferences for alternative platforms like Telegram and Instagram. These insights contribute significantly to understanding the impact and relevance of social media-based formative assessment in diverse educational contexts.

‘Coolest Thing Made in PA’ Twitter Poll Tournament Draws Attention to Chamber

‘Coolest Thing Made in PA’ Twitter Poll Tournament Draws Attention to Chamber

Point of Care Ultrasound Training in Nephrology: Twitter Poll as a Modern Tool for Development of an Effective Curriculum

Introduction: Point of care ultrasonography (POCUS) is being increasingly recognized as an adjunct to physical examination in the field of nephrology. However, paucity of trained faculty and standardized curricula remain key barriers to widespread adoption of this skill as well as development of reliable quality assessment programs at the institutional level. Herein, we sought to explore the utility of Twitter polls to gain insights into knowledge deficits of the learners for making curricular improvements while simultaneously disseminating POCUS pearls and pitfalls. Methods: A series of 57 single-question polls were tweeted over a 12-month period, each containing an ultrasound image or a video asking for correct interpretation. These were sent out from the Twitter handle of NephroPOCUS.com (@NephroP), an online POCUS education tool. The answer and a brief explanation were shared in a subsequent tweet at the end of the voting period. Information on the percentage of correct answers, Tweet impressions, and engagements was collected and analyzed by the pre-determined difficulty level (I-III) and the organ/learning objective being tested. Results: The number of responses per poll was 228 ± 94.6 (mean ± SD), and the percentage of correct responses was 57.9 ± 17.5 (mean ± SD). 16 (of 57) polls received less than 50% correct responses, of which 8 belonged to level III difficulty. The learning objectives that received the least number of correct responses in the kidney, cardiac, lung, vascular, and other categories were identification of end-stage kidney (16.2% correct answers), right pleural effusion on the parasternal short axis view of the heart (29%), right pleural effusion from the subxiphoid window (39%), grading of systemic venous congestion (27.3%), and identification of ascites on the right lateral chest window (15%), respectively. The overall engagement rate was 6.96%, which was above the median for health and higher education-related tweets on Twitter. Targeted didactic material was developed based on these results, published on various open-access nephrology education platforms. Conclusions: Twitter polls aid in identifying the knowledge gaps among POCUS learners. Information obtained from the polls can be used to improve POCUS-related curricula and develop targeted educational material to facilitate remote learning.

Twitter-based crowdsourcing: What kind of measures can help to end the COVID-19 pandemic faster?

BackgroundCrowdsourcing is a low-cost, adaptable, and innovative method to collect ideas from numerous contributors with diverse backgrounds. Crowdsourcing from social media like Twitter can be used for generating ideas in a noticeably brief time based on contributions from globally distributed users. The world has been challenged by the COVID-19 pandemic in the last several years. Measures to combat the pandemic continue to evolve worldwide, and ideas and opinions on optimal counteraction strategies are of high interest.ObjectiveThis study aimed to validate the use of Twitter as a crowdsourcing platform in order to gain an understanding of public opinion on what measures can help to end the COVID-19 pandemic faster.MethodsThis cross-sectional study was conducted during the period from December 22, 2021, to February 4, 2022. Tweets were posted by accounts operated by the authors, asking “How to faster end the COVID-19 pandemic?” and encouraging the viewers to comment on measures that they perceive would be effective to achieve this goal. The ideas from the users' comments were collected and categorized into two major themes – personal and institutional measures. In the final stage of the campaign, a Twitter poll was conducted to get additional comments and to estimate which of the two groups of measures were perceived to be important amongst Twitter users.ResultsThe crowdsourcing campaign generated seventeen suggested measures categorized into two major themes (personal and institutional) that received a total of 1,727 endorsements (supporting comments, retweets, and likes). The poll received a total of 325 votes with 58% of votes underscoring the importance of both personal and institutional measures, 20% favoring personal measures, 11% favoring institutional measures, and 11% of the votes given just out of curiosity to see the vote results.ConclusionsTwitter was utilized successfully for crowdsourcing ideas on strategies how to end the COVID-19 pandemic faster. The results indicate that the Twitter community highly values the significance of both personal responsibility and institutional measures to counteract the pandemic. This study validates the use of Twitter as a primary tool that could be used for crowdsourcing ideas with healthcare significance.

Twitter Poll as a Medium for Questionnaire-Based Health Survey: An Experience of a Pilot Study on the Preference of Systems of Medicine for Various Health Conditions.

BackgroundThe easy accessibility of smartphones and internet connections enables people to stay virtually connected to communities via social media. However, social media is also being explored for health care education and dissemination of health-related information. Twitter (Twitter, Inc., San Francisco, California) is one of the popular social media used for spreading health-related information. Twitter enables users to create polls to get opinions from their users. The Twitter poll is a less-explored avenue for health surveys.ObjectiveIn this pilot study, we aimed to explore the feasibility of conducting a questionnaire-based health survey (on the preference of different systems of medicine for the treatment of various health problems) as a Twitter poll.MethodsThis observational study was conducted on Twitter for five consecutive days starting from May 31, 2021. We posted five Twitter polls, one poll each day, for five days in a #INPST unique Twitter campaign. Preferences on the use of modern medicine, traditional medicine, a combination of these two systems, and self-medication were collected on five health conditions. We collected the data from the landing poll page and Tweet Analytics (insight about the engagement of tweets provided free by Twitter). The Chi-square test, binomial test, and one-way Analysis of Variance were used to compare data, and Spearman's rank correlation coefficient was used to find a correlation between categorical variables.ResultsWe had a mean 4358.6±590.3 poll reach with the engagement of 108.2±36.87 Twitter users and 67.6±28.06 votes. Most of the responses were received on the first day of posting the poll. The participation then gradually decreased. Modern medicine was the first choice for emergency medical care (85.1%, P <0.0001), treatment of cancer (43.6%, P <0.0001), and sexual disorder or transmitted diseases (48.9%, P <0.0001). Traditional medicine was the first choice (37.5%, P = 0.63) for the treatment of common illnesses, and a combination of modern and traditional medicine was the first choice (37.5%, P = 0.01) for the treatment of chronic diseases.ConclusionA medical survey with short questions with a maximum of four response options can be conducted on Twitter. Survey results can be obtained without any third-party analytic service. The response rate is highest on the first day and participation may decrease when multiple polls are posted within a Twitter campaign. Preference for systems of medicine found in this study can be used for designing large-scale surveys in the future.

Mandatory Vaccination Against COVID-19: Twitter Poll Analysis on Public Health Opinion.

BackgroundOn January 30, 2020, the World Health Organization Emergency Committee declared the rapid worldwide spread of COVID-19 a global health emergency. By December 2020, the safety and efficacy of the first COVID-19 vaccines had been demonstrated. However, international vaccination coverage rates have remained below expectations (in Europe at the time of manuscript submission). Controversial mandatory vaccination is currently being discussed and has already been introduced in some countries (Austria, Greece, and Italy). We used the Twitter survey system as a viable method to quickly and comprehensively gather international public health insights on mandatory vaccination against COVID-19.ObjectiveThe purpose of this study was to better understand the public’s perception of mandatory COVID-19 vaccination in real time using Twitter polls.MethodsTwo Twitter polls were developed (in the English language) to seek the public’s opinion on the possibility of mandatory vaccination. The polls were pinned to the Digital Health and Patient Safety Platform’s (based in Vienna, Austria) Twitter timeline for 1 week in mid-November 2021, 3 days after the official public announcement of mandatory COVID-19 vaccination in Austria. Twitter users were asked to participate and retweet the polls to reach the largest possible audience.ResultsOur Twitter polls revealed two extremes on the topic of mandatory vaccination against COVID-19. Almost half of the 2545 respondents (n=1246, 49%) favor mandatory vaccination, at least in certain areas. This attitude contrasts with the 45.7% (n=1162) who categorically reject mandatory vaccination. Over one-quarter (n=621, 26.3%) of participating Twitter users said they would never get vaccinated, as reflected by the current Western European and North American vaccination coverage rate. Concatenating interpretation of these two polls should be done cautiously as participating populations might substantially differ.ConclusionsMandatory vaccination against COVID-19 (in at least certain areas) is favored by less than 50%, whereas it is opposed by almost half of the surveyed Twitter users. Since (social) media strongly influences public perceptions and views, and social media discussions and surveys are specifically susceptible to the “echo chamber effect,” the results should be interpreted as a momentary snapshot. Therefore, the results of this study need to be complemented by long-term surveys to maintain their validity.

Report from 'ESCP 2021 Virtual': the 16th Scientific and Annual Conference of the European Society of Coloproctology, 22-24 September 2021.

Report from 'ESCP 2021 Virtual': the 16th Scientific and Annual Conference of the European Society of Coloproctology, 22-24 September 2021.

Should Jean be given the money?: A Twitter Poll exploration of consent and patient-centred care

I recently created a Twitter Poll with the following question: ‘Jean is 81 and is being offered palliative chemotherapy (cost £38 000) which she does not want. She would like to visit her daughter in Australia one last time (cost £1500), but she cannot afford to. Should Jean be given the money?’ Jean is hypothetical, though she is not unlike many of the patients I see in general practice. There was really too little information in the post to answer fully. Would Jean be given the £38 000, or just £1500? Where would this come from? The implication was that this would come from chemotherapy savings, but that may set precedents. Some responders pointed these difficulties out. What would happen about travel …

Tackling acid-base disorders, one Twitter poll at a time.

Understanding and interpretation of acid-base disorders is an important clinical skill that is applicable to the majority of physicians. Although this topic is taught early in medical school, acid-base disturbances have been described as challenging by postgraduate trainees. We describe the use of Twitter, an online microblogging platform, to augment education in acid-base disturbances by using polls in which the user is shown laboratory values and then asked to select the most likely etiology of the disorder. The answer and a brief explanation are then shared in a subsequent tweet. Both polling questions and answers are shared from the account for the online, mobile-optimized, nephrology teaching tool NephSIM (https://www.nephsim.com/). An anonymous survey was administered to assess attitudes toward these polls. Using Twitter as an approach to enhance teaching of acid-base disturbances was both feasible and an engaging way to teach a challenging topic for trainees and physicians. Moreover, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has demonstrated the importance of incorporating virtual learning opportunities in all levels of medical education.

Virtual Remote Attending Supervision in an Academic Emergency Department During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Background: As the surge of patients with COVID-19 increased, our academic university faculty needed to explore ways to protect the more vulnerable physicians in the group from infection while maintaining the service to our patients and the educational objectives of our residency training program. Methods: We utilized telehealth carts used for other purposes in the institution and the ED to allow the replacement of one physically present supervising attending physician with a virtual remote attending physician. This physician, working from home, can be virtually present for resident history and physicals with all patients in the supervised pod. Discussions about patient care, review of studies, and decision on final disposition can also be performed. Resident teaching can also be accomplished. Results: Our innovation represents a novel use of telemedicine capabilities which allows us to protect vulnerable faculty from infection during the COVID-19 pandemic while maintaining appropriate EM resident supervision and patient care. We found some advantages of this process which allow us to more directly observe the initial resident assessment of the patient. The residents responded favorably to the degree of supervision and patient care that we can provide remotely. Conclusions: Our novel use telemedicine during the COVID-19 pandemic has allowed us to decrease the exposure of more vulnerable faculty while maintaining the ability of these faculty to continue to contribute to patient care and resident education. It is well accepted by our residents and seems to be a viable alternative to physical presence in the ED for at least one faculty member. This modality might also be utilized by an attending who fell ill and was not yet able to return to physical work. We hope our description of this process might be useful to other academic departments or community hospital groups who may have at-risk members.

Hot Off the Press: Video for Acute Otitis Media Discharge Instructions.

Acute otitis media (AOM) in children is a common illness that results in numerous visits to health care providers for the management of pain and fever. Children often continue to experience pain, fever, or both up to a week after their initial visit, which has a significant effect on the patient and their caregiver. Unfortunately, less than 30% of parents receive instructions on pain management. Thus, there is a clear need to improve the delivery of discharge instructions for AOM.

Use of Social Media as a Tool for Antibiotics Awareness

Objective: Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a global health threat; public perception about AMR is a huge lacuna which many researchers, doctors, and policymakers fail to pay attention to. Infection control is often limited to diagnosis and treatment in hospitals, presentations, and panel discussions. On the other side of the fence, usage of social media to spread information about health care is a common practice among the public today. Twitter is one such online platform.Materials and Methods: This was a cross-sectional tweet-based poll titled “antibiotic awareness survey” for 7 days with five simple yet pertinent questions asked to the participants in the Twitter poll and also to retweet (RT) the questions to their followers. The questions were designed keeping in mind the limitation of tweets on the timeline and the necessity of addressal to the issue among the random group. Results: Seventy-two percent responded saying they procure antibiotics based on doctor's prescription. The most common reason to stop antibiotics for 35% of the participants was symptomatic relief and the perception that it is okay to stop, but 56% said they always complete the course. 52% of the participants said that the treating doctor does not explain to them about the antibiotics while prescribing, but 81% said that the doctor advises them on completing the course. 75% of the participants said that antibiotics are in danger and require regulation, 22% said maybe to an extent. Conclusion: Social media plays a critical role in dissemination of AMR-related information; the unrestricted and unregulated access to knowledge shapes the views and opinions of society. The perception and practices were thus reflected through this weeklong discourse about antibiotics on Twitter, and we doctors of today have a responsible role to play.

A New Tool for Public Health Opinion to Give Insight Into Telemedicine: Twitter Poll Analysis

BackgroundTelemedicine draws on information technologies in order to enable the delivery of clinical health care from a distance. Twitter is a social networking platform that has 316 million monthly active users with 500 million tweets per day; its potential for real-time monitoring of public health has been well documented. There is a lack of empirical research that has critically examined the potential of Twitter polls for providing insight into public health. One of the benefits of utilizing Twitter polls is that it is possible to gain access to a large audience that can provide instant and real-time feedback. Moreover, Twitter polls are completely anonymized.ObjectiveThe overall aim of this study was to develop and disseminate Twitter polls based on existing surveys to gain real-time feedback on public views and opinions toward telemedicine.MethodsTwo Twitter polls were developed utilizing questions from previously used questionnaires to explore acceptance of telemedicine among Twitter users. The polls were placed on the Twitter timeline of one of the authors, which had more than 9300 followers, and the account followers were asked to answer the poll and retweet it to reach a larger audience.ResultsIn a population where telemedicine was expected to enjoy big support, a significant number of Twitter users responding to the poll felt that telemedicine was not as good as traditional care.ConclusionsOur results show the potential of Twitter polls for gaining insight into public health topics on a range of health issues not just limited to telemedicine. Our study also sheds light on how Twitter polls can be used to validate and test survey questions.

Integrating Geriatrics Knowledge into a Medical Student Clerkship Using Twitter Poll.

A controlled, prospective, 2-year cohort observational study was conducted to test whether weekly geriatric questions delivered through Twitter Poll could improve geriatrics knowledge during an internal medicine clerkship for third-year medical students. Pre- and post-rotation test results used a modified University of California, Los Angeles geriatric knowledge test that included questions linked to 26 Association of American Medical Colleges geriatric competencies for medical students. Data were analyzed using a general linear model repeated-measure design and Student t-test. The primary outcome showed that Twitter Poll participants had more than twice the geriatrics knowledge (p = .002) than students who did not use Twitter Poll. Subset analysis showed different test performances according to sex (p = .03), training site (p = .002), and cohort (p = .003). This study is the first demonstration of Twitter Poll efficacy in medical education and raises questions about whether it could be even more effective if linked to spaced timing of didactic content or supported by annotated answers to geriatrics questions. J Am Geriatr Soc 66:2389-2393, 2018.

Thank you to our diverse (but not diverse enough) reviewers

A recent Twitter poll by the organisers of Peer Review Week (Sept 10–15), whose theme this year is diversity in peer review, indicated that 44% of respondents thought that there was “a major problem around diversity and inclusion in peer review”. Indeed, as Jacob Steinberg and colleagues1Steinberg JJ Skae C Sampson B Gender gap, disparity, and inequality in peer review.Lancet. 2018; 391: 2602-2603Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (21) Google Scholar revealed earlier this year in their analysis of 10 years' worth of peer reviewers for selected medical journals, only about 13% were women at the New England Journal of Medicine and only 10% were so at The Lancet. Nature has admitted to similarly lamentable figures.2EditorialGender imbalance in science journals is still pervasive.Nature. 2017; 541: 435-436Crossref Scopus (19) Google Scholar How does The Lancet Global Health compare? As part of this year's annual thanks and public recognition of all those who have reviewed for us over the past 12 months (appendix), we attempted to analyse the gender of all 624 reviewers between August 2017 and August 2018. We successfully identified the gender of all but three, and found that 225 (36%) were women and 396 (64%) men. So our gender balance is better than some, but is it good enough? We don't think so. Taking the self-punishment a little further, we also analysed reviewer diversity by country (figure). The results show that, although 64 countries were represented, nearly a third of reviewers came from the USA alone, with 15% from the UK. The next highest representations were Canada, Australia, Switzerland, India, South Africa, France, Brazil, and Italy (appendix). The Lancet Global Health generally sources four reviewers per original research article. One of them must be a statistician and there must be a health economist or modeller in the mix if there is an element of either type of analysis in the paper. If the paper is about a particular country, then we make all reasonable effort to include at least one reviewer from that country. Sometimes this is easy; sometimes it is hard. We also aim to have a spread of geographical representation when a paper pertains to multiple regions. We will continue to pursue and monitor this approach and welcome further suggestions from readers and contributors. Regarding gender, however, we can do more. We will aim to invite 50% women on every paper over the next year, with the goal of achieving an overall ratio that is much closer to parity than it currently is. Our task will be made difficult by the fact that, of our much smaller pool of regular statistical advisers, only about 25% are currently women. We therefore welcome applications, by email to the address below, from qualified female statisticians to join our pool. We offer a modest honorarium for each review. Thank you to all those (male and female) who reviewed for us over the past year (appendix). I thank Louisa Iselin for data analysis and heatmap production. I declare no competing interests. Download .pdf (.13 MB) Help with pdf files Supplementary appendix

Use of Twitter Polls to Determine Public Opinion Regarding Content Presented at a Major National Specialty Society Meeting

PurposeThe aim of this study was to evaluate the feasibility of using Twitter polls to assess public opinion regarding session content at a national specialty society meeting. MethodsTwitter polls allow users to embed multiple-choice questions within tweets and automatically aggregate responses. Two radiologists attending the 2016 annual meeting of the ACR posted a Twitter poll containing the hashtag #ACR2016 during 10 meeting sessions addressing socioeconomics/advocacy, patient experience, and social media/informatics (20 polls total). Each poll contained a question asking for an opinion regarding the session’s content. Polls were open for responses for 24 hours. ResultsThe average number of responses per poll was significantly higher for the user with the larger number of Twitter followers (24.3 ± 14.4 versus 11.2 ± 9.8, P = .015). A total of 57% of respondents agreed that radiologists’ payments should shift to value-based payments, and 86% agreed that radiologists should routinely survey their patients to monitor quality; however, 83% disagreed with basing physician payments on patient satisfaction scores. A total of 85% disagreed that the artificial intelligence supercomputer Watson will entirely replace radiologists. A total of 76% agreed that social media can drive business at less cost than standard marketing. A total of 56% agreed with the direction of the ACR’s advocacy and regulatory efforts, whereas 74% considered the ACR’s advocacy efforts to be moderately or very useful for their practice. A total of 50% planned to change their practice on the basis of keynote remarks by Dr Ezekiel Emanuel. ConclusionsTwitter polls provide a free and easy infrastructure to potentially capture global public sentiment during the course of a medical society meeting. Their use may enrich and promote discussions of key session content.