P1854SOCIAL NETWORK AS A SOURCE OF HEALTH EDUCATION IN NEPHROLOGY: THE CASE OF RENAL HEALTH INSTAGRAM
Authors: Bezerra da Silva Junior Geraldo , Askari Marjan , Dourado Diovana , Praça Brasil Thiago , Carneiro de Holanda Barbara , Gomes Ramalho de Oliveira Juliana , De Francesco Daher Elizabeth , Vasconcelos Filho Jose Eurico , Formico Rodrigues Maria Andreia 
Published: June 2020

Background and Aims

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) have been affecting a large number of patients worldwide and presents increasing numbers. Beyond professional intervention, it is extremely necessary to have patients’ involvement in treatment. One useful way to disseminate CKD knowledge is the social network, through which we can not only reach a large public interested on the posts, but also influence the routine quality of a CKD patient. The aim of this study is to present the creation of an Instagram profile named “Renal Health”, which focuses on providing specific information for patients with CKD to help them improve the quality of treatment results and maintain a healthy lifestyle, as well as to analyze the spontaneous comments and feedbacks received from its followers.

Method

The Renal Health project started in 2015, in Fortaleza, Brazil, aiming to create technological tools to help CKD patients cope with the disease and increase adherence to treatment. The research team has a multi-professional background, from Health, Information Technology, Computer Science and Communication fields, and also aims to create educational tools to increase health literacy focusing on kidney disease and its prevention. An Instagram profile (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3-GHeHAndcrRmbE4I_qE_w) have been created to provide people with access to these specialized contents. Within that context, we collected spontaneous comments and feedbacks from 4,229 followers from the Renal Health Instagram posts from June 2018 (when the profile was created) to December 2019.

Results

We have reached a total of 4,229 followers. There were 505 posts, 16 (3.16%) about medication, 65 (12.87%) about nutrition, 12 (2.3%) about physical exercise, 132 (26.13%) about kidney disease and comorbidities, 82 (16.23%) about CKD treatment, 61 (12.07%) about kidney transplant and organ donation, and 137 (27.12 %) about other subjects, including motivational messages. Of a total of 1,560 comments, we have identified 543 profiles, of these 88 (16.2%) were men, and 412 (75.8%) women, noting the prevalence of women among the comments made. Among those comments, 223 were regarding congratulations on the profile. We have identified 99 patients with kidney diseases, mainly CKD; 81 (81.81%) spontaneously reported their illnesses in their comments, being 46 (56.8%) on dialysis, 13 (16.4%) transplanted patients, 5 (6.7%) glomerulonephritis, 4 (4.9%) kidney stones and 4 (4.9%) renal cysts. In the group of 46 patients on dialysis, we have identified 105 comments, of which 14 were regarding the value of the information on the posts, followed by 71 comments on personal experiences on the subject and 20 comments containing questions about the topic, which we had prompt answered. Among the group of 13 renal transplanted patients, 12 comments demonstrated their happiness after the transplant and their experiences on the subject, and 1 comment containing a question about kidney transplant. We have also identified other health professionals interacting with the profile, declaring that it was helpful to guide their patients. Furthermore, this platform had crossed the borders, being identified comments by people from around the world, such as other South American countries, the Middle East and Europe. The most recent posts can be seen in Figure 1.

Conclusion

Through the analysis of the comments we noticed the possibility of better knowing the followers of the project, enabling the development of personalized information for each patient. Social networks, such as the Instagram, seem to be great tools for health education and interaction between health care team and patients. In addition, the use of digital platforms to share trusted health information can reach a broad audience.