We observed that many videos were produced by professional societies, news reports, and didactic lectures from reputable universities. However, these were not the ones with the most views. The videos that were viewed most often were those posted by media not related to any professional society or part of a news report. Similarly, videos that described personal experiences were “liked” as well as “disliked” most often and had the majority of comments. This indicates that people are more interested in and show active participation in their peers' experiences about a disease rather than in professional conferences or didactic lectures, irrespective of authenticity or the source of such material. This observation is in accordance with the social learning theory, which asserts the significance of peer education in eliciting behavioral change in individuals. In our study, the distinction between videos targeting the layperson vs healthcare providers was unclear. This might be the reason for underutilization of available video resources by people in general. Further, we found that a large number of videos were irrelevant, which indicates that good videos are often mixed in with a plethora of irrelevant content. A layperson often has to sift through this vast information and runs the risk of being misinformed.
Hence, why doctors need to be on social media.
Another take-home message from this study: professional societies need to make their videos shorter and use patient experiences to bring their message home.
-Wes
