Exploring educational interventions to facilitate health professional students’ professionally safe online presence
Open accessAbstract
OBJECTIVE: To establish the most effective approach and type of educational intervention for health professional students, to enable them to maintain a professionally safe online presence. METHOD: This was a qualitative, multinational, multi-institutional, multiprofessional study. Practical considerations (availability of participants) led us to use a combination of focus groups and individual interviews, strengthening our findings by triangulating our method of data collection. The study gathered data from 57 nursing, medical and paramedical students across four sites in three countries (Aotearoa/New Zealand, Australia and Wales). A content analysis was conducted to clarify how and why students used Facebook and what strategies they thought might be useful to ensure professional usage. A series of emergent codes were examined and a thematic analysis undertaken from which key themes were crystallized. RESULTS: The results illuminated the ways in which students use social networking sites (SNS). The three key themes to emerge from the data analysis were negotiating identities, distancing and risks. Students expressed the wish to have material about professional safety on SNS taught to them by authoritative figures to explain "the rules" as well as by peers to assist with practicalities. Our interactive research method demonstrated the transformative capacity of the students working in groups. CONCLUSIONS: Our study supports the need for an educational intervention to assist health professional students to navigate SNS safely and in a manner appropriate to their future roles as health professionals. Because health professional students develop their professional identity throughout their training, we suggest that the most appropriate intervention incorporate small group interactive sessions from those in authority, and from peers, combined with group work that facilitates and enhances the students' development of a professional identity.
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A total of 11 studies conducted in-depth or semistructured interviews, and 6 studies used focus groups.
“A total of 11 studies conducted in-depth or semistructured interviews [34,36,44,49,58,65,73,76,97,104,117], and 6 studies used focus groups [45,49,58,70,112,117].”
From Dangers and Benefits of Social Media on E-Professionalism of Health Care Professionals: Scoping Review (2021) · cites this paper as [49]
Several studies in this review have recognized the need to include students in the development of guidelines or to assist in education with somebody of their age group, providing personal experiences and more of a nonauthoritative approach.
“Several studies in this review have recognized the need to include students in the development of guidelines [47] or to assist in education with somebody of their age group, providing personal experiences and more of a “nonauthoritative” approach [49].”
From Dangers and Benefits of Social Media on E-Professionalism of Health Care Professionals: Scoping Review (2021) · cites this paper as [49]
Some studies on healthcare students, mostly in Western and Westernized countries, showed the importance of implementing guidelines on professional social media use, but a limited number of studies targeted all categories of healthcare students.
“Some studies on healthcare students [21, 22], the majority of which done in Western and Westernized countries, showed the importance of implementing guidelines on the professional use of social media, but a limited number of studies [23–25] targeted all categories of healthcare students.”
From Future healthcare providers and professionalism on social media: a cross-sectional study (2022) · cites this paper as [23]
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- Authors
- Henning, M. A., Hawken, S., MacDonald, J., McKimm, J., Brown, M., Moriarty, H., Gasquoine, S., Chan, K., Hilder, J., & Wilkinson, T.
- Affiliations
- University of Auckland (NZ)
- University of Otago (NZ)
- Swansea University (GB)
- New Zealand Nurses Organisation, Auckland, New Zealand;
- Griffith University (AU)
- Corresponding author
- Henning, Marcus A.
- Venue
- Medical Teacher
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2017-05-31
- Volume
- 39
- Issue
- 9
- Pages
- 959-966
- ISSN
- 0142-159X (ISSN-L)
- 1466-187X
- OpenAlex
- W2620408679
- Cited by
- 21
- References
- 44
- Citations by year
- 2024: 1 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 2
- FWCI
- 2.12
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- figshare.com
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- Medical Teacher (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Griffith Research Online (submittedVersion)
- Figshare (cc-by)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Health › Social Media in Health Education
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Innovations in Medical Education
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Impact of Technology on Adolescents
- Keywords
- health professions students, social networking sites, Facebook use, professional identity, professional safety, educational intervention, peer education, nursing students, medical students, paramedical students, online risks
- MeSH terms
- Australia, Education, Medical, Undergraduate, Health Personnel, Humans, New Zealand, Students, Health Occupations, Students, Medical, Focus Groups, Qualitative Research, Social Networking, Social Media
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