Social media prevalence, habits and attitudes on e-professionalism of medicine and dental medicine students: A quantitative cross-sectional study (Preprint)
Authors: Viskic Josko , Jokic Drazen , Marelic Marko , Machala Poplasen Lovela , Relic Danko , Sedak Kristijan , Vukusic Rukavina Tea 
Published: November 2020

BACKGROUND

Social media (SM) has infiltrated all levels of the healthcare profession with students being at the forefront. Professional behavior on the internet, or “e-professionalism”, is paramount for adequate usage of SM for students, and their interaction with patients online.

OBJECTIVE

The objectives of this study were to describe and compare SM use by medical and dental students. We also wanted to assess and compare differences in attitudes between medical and dental students on e-professionalism, determine their opinion on potentially unprofessional behavior and posts and their interaction with patients on SM.

METHODS

A quantitative cross-sectional questionnaire study on the use of SM and attitudes about e-professionalism of students was carried out in the School of Medicine University of Zagreb, Croatia and the School of Dental Medicine University of Zagreb, Croatia.

RESULTS

Of the 714 collected responses 698 entered final analysis (411 medical and 287 dental students). Facebook (99%) and Instagram (80.7%) were the most commonly used SM. Unprofessional content was recognized both by medical and dental students with most interesting significant differences between groups when asked which of the following types of posts/behaviors (posted on SM) do they consider unprofessional: post with patient photos (61% dental vs. 89.8% medical, χ21=81.547, P<.001), interaction with a patient not revealing any personal identifiable information (23% dental vs. 41.8% medical, χ21=26.729, P<.001); advertising of pharmaceutical or health products without disclosing conflict of interest (26.8% dental vs. 41.1% medical, χ21=15.121, P<.001); critical comments about faculty (53% dental vs. 39.7% medical, χ21=12.076, P=.001); critical comments about teaching materials, study program, school, or university (36.2% dental vs. 25.1% medical, χ21=10.118, P=.001).
Dental students believe significantly more that people have the opportunity to post photos and document aspects of their professional life which would otherwise remain private (89.5% dental vs. 84.2% medical, χ21= 4.132, P=.026), and that they should be able to do what they want online (68.3% dental vs. 60.8% medical, χ21= 4.083, P=.043).
Dental students are also more open to communication through social media than medical students (39.7% dental vs. 16.3% medical, χ22=81.686, P<.001), will (41.5% dental vs. 12.2% medical, χ24= 87.344, P<.001) and have (28.2% dental vs. 5.6% medical, χ21=68.235, P<.001) accepted friend request/follow/track from patients more readily, and even sent friend requests/follow/track their patients (5.2% dental vs. 1.2% medical χ21=9.763, P=.002).

CONCLUSIONS

Social media use is ubiquitous among the studied student population. Awareness of e-professionalism is relatively high for both student groups with dental students being more desensitized to visual representations of patients, and more prone to interaction with patients on SM. Medical students are more open to criticism of school program and faculty. Our research also highlights previous findings that both student groups would find useful the existence of guidelines about e-professionalism.