The DOI matches its Crossref record; 55 of the 55 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Social media use in healthcare: A systematic review of effects on patients and on their relationship with healthcare professionals
Open accessAbstract
BACKGROUND: Since the emergence of social media in 2004, a growing percentage of patients use this technology for health related reasons. To reflect on the alleged beneficial and potentially harmful effects of social media use by patients, the aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the extant literature on the effects of social media use for health related reasons on patients and their relationship with healthcare professionals. METHODS: We conducted a systematic literature review on empirical research regarding the effects of social media use by patients for health related reasons. The papers we included met the following selection criteria: (1) published in a peer-reviewed journal, (2) written in English, (3) full text available to the researcher, (4) contain primary empirical data, (5) the users of social media are patients, (6) the effects of patients using social media are clearly stated, (7) satisfy established quality criteria. RESULTS: Initially, a total of 1,743 articles were identified from which 22 were included in the study. From these articles six categories of patients' use of social media were identified, namely: emotional, information, esteem, network support, social comparison and emotional expression. The types of use were found to lead to seven identified types of effects on patients, namely improved self-management and control, enhanced psychological well-being, and enhanced subjective well-being, diminished subjective well-being, addiction to social media, loss of privacy, and being targeted for promotion. Social media use by patients was found to affect the healthcare professional and patient relationship, by leading to more equal communication between the patient and healthcare professional, increased switching of doctors, harmonious relationships, and suboptimal interaction between the patient and healthcare professional. CONCLUSIONS: Our review provides insights into the emerging utilization of social media in healthcare. In particular, it identifies types of use by patients as well as the effects of such use, which may differ between patients and doctors. Accordingly, our results framework and propositions can serve to guide future research, and they also have practical implications for healthcare providers and policy makers.
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“Health promotion on social media also encouraged patients to seek medical attention more willingly [11].”
From Social Media Use Among Parents and Caregivers of Children With Rare Genetic Diseases: Scoping Review (2025) · cites this paper as [11]
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe source backs part of the claim, not all of it — or backs it for a different population, condition or comparison.
In the citing paper
“Most patients discuss information they have found online with their health care provider”
From Social Media Use Among Parents and Caregivers of Children With Rare Genetic Diseases: Scoping Review (2025) · cites this paper as [11]
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe source backs part of the claim, not all of it — or backs it for a different population, condition or comparison.
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“however, physicians often react negatively to discussions involving information sourced from social media [11-13].”
From Social Media Use Among Parents and Caregivers of Children With Rare Genetic Diseases: Scoping Review (2025) · cites this paper as [11]
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe cited source says what the claim attributes to it.
In the citing paper
“Prior literature has highlighted both benefits and risks of social media in healthcare,4–13 but there remains limited understanding of how generational perspectives shape views of professionalism in healthcare social media use.”
From Evaluating perceptions of social media professionalism by healthcare workers (2026) · cites this paper as [5]
The cited source says what the claim attributes to it.
In the citing paper
“Social media use is also related to shorter relationships with health care providers, as online discussions prompted patients to seek specific providers [11].”
From Social Media Use Among Parents and Caregivers of Children With Rare Genetic Diseases: Scoping Review (2025) · cites this paper as [11]
The cited source says what the claim attributes to it.
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“social media empowers patients to be more informed and involved in their own care”
From Social Media Use Among Parents and Caregivers of Children With Rare Genetic Diseases: Scoping Review (2025) · cites this paper as [11]
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“allowing for improved communication with medical professionals [11,12].”
From Social Media Use Among Parents and Caregivers of Children With Rare Genetic Diseases: Scoping Review (2025) · cites this paper as [11]
The check wasn’t confident either way, so it gives no verdict — never disputed.
In the citing paper
“popularity of SM has also been embraced by health care professionals (HCPs) [5].”
From Dangers and Benefits of Social Media on E-Professionalism of Health Care Professionals: Scoping Review (2021) · cites this paper as [5]
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Citations
Cites
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“The articles were assessed on their quality by using the standard quality assessment criteria as identified by [12].”
MethodInfluentialThe health-related functions of social support
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“Social support is represented through five different categories and four of these categories were found to be common types of social media use by patients for health related purposes [18].”
BackgroundThe decision and the organization
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
Al-Dmour, H. H., Masa’deh, R. M. T., Salman, A. Z., Abuhashesh, M., & Al-Dmour, R. (2020) · Journal of Medical Internet Research · doi:10.2196/19996 · Cited by 407
“The content of the questionnaire (constructs and measures) was mainly selected and adopted from previous relevant studies [2,10,29,30,36-38] using a 5-point Likert scale ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5).”
BackgroundMethodEvaluating the Impact of Attempts to Correct Health Misinformation on Social Media: A Meta-Analysis
Walter, N., Brooks, J. J., Saucier, C. J., & Suresh, S. (2020) · Health Communication · doi:10.1080/10410236.2020.1794553 · Cited by 390
“At the same time that social media can facilitate support, complement offline information, and empower patients, the deluge of false and misleading information on these platforms constitutes a substantial threat to public health (Smailhodzic et al., 2016).”
BackgroundJiang, S., & Ngien, A. (2020) · Social Media + Society · doi:10.1177/2056305120912488 · Cited by 367
Giustini, D. M., Ali, S. M., Fraser, M., & Boulos, M. N. K. (2018) · Online Journal of Public Health Informatics · doi:10.5210/ojphi.v10i2.8270 · Cited by 271
“Use of Facebook and Twitter was viewed favourably and rarely associated with harmful effects in e-professionalism or social relationships [16,28,52].”
BackgroundMethodInfluentialImpact of COVID-19 on the digital divide: a rapid review
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Metadata
- Authors
- Smailhodzic, E., Hooijsma, W., Boonstra, A., & Langley, D. J.
- Affiliations
- University of Groningen (NL)
- Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (NL)
- Venue
- BMC Health Services Research
- Published
- 2016-08-26
- Volume
- 16
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 442-442
- ISSN
- 1472-6963 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC5000484
- OpenAlex
- W2512433998
- Cited by
- 827
- References
- 55
- Citations by year
- 2026: 75 · 2025: 107 · 2024: 107 · 2023: 99 · 2022: 111 · 2021: 127 · 2020: 96 · 2019: 61 · 2018: 29 · 2017: 14
- FWCI
- 6.51
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- BMC Health Services Research (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (acceptedVersion)
- TNO Repository (submittedVersion)
- University of Groningen research database (University of Groningen / Centre for Information Technology) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Repository hosted by TU Delft Library (TU Delft) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Health › Social Media in Health Education
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Health Literacy and Information Accessibility
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Impact of Technology on Adolescents
- Keywords
- social media use, patient self-management, psychological well-being, subjective well-being, social media addiction, privacy loss, social comparison, network support, patient-physician communication
- MeSH terms
- Female, Health Personnel, Humans, Male, Professional-Patient Relations, Self Care, Consumer Health Information, Social Media
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