The personal use of Facebook by public health professionals in Canada: Implications for public health practice
Abstract
Objective: We explored attitudes, beliefs, and experiences of Canadian public health professionals (PHPs) and their personal use of Facebook to assess views of online professionalism and blurring between their professional and personal lives.Methods: Ten public health organizations assisted in distributing an online questionnaire to their members. The questionnaire explored Facebook use, personality factors, and beliefs about online etiquette.Results: Among 621 respondents, 77% had a personal Facebook profile. Participants were unlikely to disclose personal information on Facebook. Generally, participants felt posting workday information online was inappropriate; however, 15 and 26% thought it acceptable to vent about the general public, and post comments about people or beliefs that oppose accepted public health views, respectively. Approximately one in four participants (26%) believed that the personal use of Facebook has an impact on one's role as a public health practitioner. One in eight participants (12%) was likely to search for members of the public with whom they had previous professional contact. The need for popularity and awareness of consequences were key predictors of participants' disclosure on Facebook.Conclusions: Overlap between the private and public lives of Canadian PHPs exists on Facebook, and highlights the potential for damage to public health credibility. Future research should evaluate any real-world impact of comments and venting (via personal Facebook profiles) on public health credibility, especially as public health continues to embrace social media for health interventions where online contact between individual employees of public health organizations and members of the general public is increased.
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Of the survey studies, only about one-third had a response rate of 50% or greater, and 9 studies did not explicitly report a response rate.
“Of these survey studies, only about one-third had a response rate of 50% or greater, and 9 studies did not explicitly report a response rate [39,53,60,63,65,67,72,75,96].”
From Dangers and Benefits of Social Media on E-Professionalism of Health Care Professionals: Scoping Review (2021) · cites this paper as [96]
Studies showed privacy settings deployment from 71% to 97% among health care professionals.
“Studies showed privacy settings deployment from 71% to 97% among HCPs [40,42,65,66,68,96,100,115,117,118].”
From Dangers and Benefits of Social Media on E-Professionalism of Health Care Professionals: Scoping Review (2021) · cites this paper as [96]
Studies investigated whether participants mixed professional and personal information and activities on social media sites (blended profiles) or adopted a separation strategy (dual citizenship).
“Studies also investigated the purpose of SM use, whether participants mixed professional and personal information and activities on SM sites (blended profiles) or adopted a separation strategy where professional information and activities were clearly separated from personal ones (dual citizenship) [34,39,69,78,79,91,96,97,106].”
From Dangers and Benefits of Social Media on E-Professionalism of Health Care Professionals: Scoping Review (2021) · cites this paper as [96]
Greater disclosure on Facebook was associated with a greater need for popularity.
“Greater disclosure on Facebook was associated with lesser awareness of the consequences of posting information on Facebook, a greater need for popularity, a higher level of self-esteem, a greater number of Facebook friends, and a higher frequency of signing in to Facebook [96].”
From Dangers and Benefits of Social Media on E-Professionalism of Health Care Professionals: Scoping Review (2021) · cites this paper as [96]
Greater disclosure on Facebook was associated with higher self-esteem.
“Greater disclosure on Facebook was associated with lesser awareness of the consequences of posting information on Facebook, a greater need for popularity, a higher level of self-esteem, a greater number of Facebook friends, and a higher frequency of signing in to Facebook [96].”
From Dangers and Benefits of Social Media on E-Professionalism of Health Care Professionals: Scoping Review (2021) · cites this paper as [96]
Greater disclosure on Facebook was associated with lesser awareness of the consequences of posting information on Facebook.
“Greater disclosure on Facebook was associated with lesser awareness of the consequences of posting information on Facebook, a greater need for popularity, a higher level of self-esteem, a greater number of Facebook friends, and a higher frequency of signing in to Facebook [96].”
From Dangers and Benefits of Social Media on E-Professionalism of Health Care Professionals: Scoping Review (2021) · cites this paper as [96]
Greater disclosure on Facebook was associated with a greater number of Facebook friends.
“Greater disclosure on Facebook was associated with lesser awareness of the consequences of posting information on Facebook, a greater need for popularity, a higher level of self-esteem, a greater number of Facebook friends, and a higher frequency of signing in to Facebook [96].”
From Dangers and Benefits of Social Media on E-Professionalism of Health Care Professionals: Scoping Review (2021) · cites this paper as [96]
Blurred boundaries between professional and personal spheres of social media use, with concerns about exposure of private life or separating private and professional profiles, have been presented in numerous studies in this review.
“Blurred boundaries between professional and personal spheres of SM use [34, 39, 47, 51, 69, 78, 79, 91, 96, 97, 106], with concerns about exposure of one’s private life or separating private and professional profiles have been presented in numerous studies of this review.”
From Dangers and Benefits of Social Media on E-Professionalism of Health Care Professionals: Scoping Review (2021) · cites this paper as [96]
Greater disclosure on Facebook was associated with a higher frequency of signing in to Facebook.
“Greater disclosure on Facebook was associated with lesser awareness of the consequences of posting information on Facebook, a greater need for popularity, a higher level of self-esteem, a greater number of Facebook friends, and a higher frequency of signing in to Facebook [96].”
From Dangers and Benefits of Social Media on E-Professionalism of Health Care Professionals: Scoping Review (2021) · cites this paper as [96]
Lack of free time or time constraint was often recognized as a barrier.
“Lack of free time or time constraint was often recognized as a barrier [39,69,74,79,91,93,96], as well as lack of knowledge or technical skills for use of SM [33,39,76,79,93,118].”
From Dangers and Benefits of Social Media on E-Professionalism of Health Care Professionals: Scoping Review (2021) · cites this paper as [96]
Blurred boundaries between professional and personal spheres of social media use, with concerns about exposure of one's private life, presenting details of personal life, or separating private and professional profiles, have been presented in numerous studies in this review.
“Blurred boundaries between professional and personal spheres of SM use [34, 39, 47, 51, 69, 78, 79, 91, 96, 97, 106], with concerns about exposure of one’s private life, presenting details of personal life, or separating private and professional profiles, have been presented in numerous studies in this review.”
From Dangers and Benefits of Social Media on E-Professionalism of Health Care Professionals: Scoping Review (2021) · cites this paper as [96]
A lack of free time or time constraint was often recognized as a barrier to health care professionals' use of social media in the context of e-professionalism, as well as a lack of knowledge or technical skills for use of social media.
“A lack of free time or time constraint was often recognized as a barrier [39,69,74,79,91,93,96], as well as a lack of knowledge or technical skills for use of SM [33,39,76,79,93,118].”
From Dangers and Benefits of Social Media on E-Professionalism of Health Care Professionals: Scoping Review (2021) · cites this paper as [96]
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“Lack of free time or time constraint was often recognized as a barrier [39,69,74,79,91,93,96], as well as lack of knowledge or technical skills for use of SM [33,39,76,79,93,118].”
Influential
- Authors
- Weijs, C., Majowicz, S., Coe, J. B., Desmarais, S., & Jones-Bitton, A.
- Affiliations
- University of Calgary (CA)
- University of Waterloo (CA)
- Ontario Veterinary College (CA)
- University of Guelph (CA)
- Department of Population Medicine, Ontario Veterinary College, University of Guelph, 50 Stone Rd., Canada N1G 2W1
- Corresponding author
- Weijs, Cynthia
- Venue
- Journal of Communication in Healthcare
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2017-01-02
- Volume
- 10
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 8-15
- ISSN
- 1753-8068 (ISSN-L)
- 1753-8076
- OpenAlex
- W2574511368
- Cited by
- 8
- References
- 28
- Citations by year
- 2022: 4 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 1 · 2017: 1
- FWCI
- 0.61
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Communications In Healthcare (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Canadian Institutes of Health Research (599547)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Health › Social Media in Health Education
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Public Health Policies and Education
- Social Sciences › Demography › Cyberloafing and Workplace Behavior
- Keywords
- Facebook, public health workforce, social media use, online professionalism, personal information disclosure, digital etiquette, venting, personality factors, Canadian public health
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