The evolving role of social media in health-care delivery: measuring the perception of health-care professionals in Eastern Saudi Arabia
Open accessAbstract
PURPOSE: The objective of this study is to evaluate the perception of health-care professionals in Saudi Arabia toward the usages of social media in health-care delivery. METHODS: In this cross-sectional study, an online-based questionnaire was distributed among the health-care professionals residing in the eastern region of Saudi Arabia. Their perception toward the uses of social media in health-care service delivery was evaluated by analyzing their attitude toward its benefits and risks involved. RESULTS: The sample size was 120 participants, and 80% of them agreed with the benefits of using social networks in health-care services and considered that the use of these technologies in the provision of health services improves their professional knowledge and is a suitable tool for patient education and public health awareness. However, some respondents (20%) believed that there are several risks associated with the use of social media, such as ethical or legal challenges, the risk to the patient's health status, or the breaching of the privacy and confidentiality of the patient. CONCLUSION: The results of this research indicate that social media can be a useful tool by which physicians may promote their services and publish general health information. However, there are potential problems in the use of social networks that can have negative consequences for patients and HCPs. This implies that precautions must be taken to avoid ruptures of patient privacy and other risks that can result in legal action against health professionals damaging their image and professional status. The study also found that the participants are willing to use social media for professional purposes.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Positive professional behaviors and attitudes regarding patient education and health promotion were reported.
“Positive professional behaviors and attitudes regarding patient education and health promotion were also reported [34,37,75,97,106].”
From Dangers and Benefits of Social Media on E-Professionalism of Health Care Professionals: Scoping Review (2021) · cites this paper as [75]
The Discussion reports positive attitudes: 85% of respondents considered social media a good tool for patient education, and 84.1% did so for public health. But it says professional use of social media was minimal; it does not report positive professional behaviors in patient education or health promotion. (LLM, conf=0.86)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredNumerous studies document blurred boundaries between patients and health care professionals, and between students and faculty.
“Numerous studies document blurred boundaries between patient and HCPs, and between students and faculty [40, 43, 47, 59, 64, 65, 68, 70, 73, 75, 78, 82, 85, 98, 100, 105, 107, 114, 117].”
From Dangers and Benefits of Social Media on E-Professionalism of Health Care Professionals: Scoping Review (2021) · cites this paper as [75]
The Discussion (page unavailable) describes risks to patient privacy and HCPs’ professional image from social media, which bears on patient–HCP boundaries. It does not document blurred boundaries between students and faculty, and its patient–HCP findings concern potential privacy risks rather than observed boundary blurring. (LLM, conf=0.70)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredOf 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 [75]
About 80% of health care professionals from Saudi Arabia agreed with the benefits of using social media in health care services.
“About 80% of HCPs from Saudi Arabia agreed with the benefits of using SM in health care services”
From Dangers and Benefits of Social Media on E-Professionalism of Health Care Professionals: Scoping Review (2021) · cites this paper as [75]
Health care professionals from Saudi Arabia considered that use of these technologies in provision of health services improves their professional knowledge and that social media can be a useful tool by which physicians may promote their services.
“and considered that the use of these technologies in the provision of health services improves their professional knowledge and that SM can be a useful tool by which physicians may promote their services [75].”
From Dangers and Benefits of Social Media on E-Professionalism of Health Care Professionals: Scoping Review (2021) · cites this paper as [75]
More than half of health care professionals in a cross-sectional study in Saudi Arabia agreed with benefits of using social networking sites in health care services as a suitable tool for patient education and raising public health awareness.
“More than half of the HCPs in a cross-sectional study in Saudi Arabia agreed with the benefits of using SNSs in health care services as a suitable tool for patient education and raising public health awareness [75].”
From Dangers and Benefits of Social Media on E-Professionalism of Health Care Professionals: Scoping Review (2021) · cites this paper as [75]
Boundaries are blurred between patients and health care professionals, and between students and faculty.
“Boundaries are blurred between patients and HCPs, and between students and faculty [40, 43, 47, 59, 64, 65, 68, 70, 73, 75, 78, 82, 85, 98, 100, 105, 107, 114, 117].”
From Dangers and Benefits of Social Media on E-Professionalism of Health Care Professionals: Scoping Review (2021) · cites this paper as [75]
The Discussion describes risks to patient privacy and HCPs’ professional image, and the Methods questionnaire asks about physician–patient communication. Neither passage says that social media blurs boundaries between patients and HCPs, and the retrieved passages do not address boundaries between students and faculty (searched for both relationships and professional boundaries). (LLM, conf=0.72)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
The citation lists haven’t been fetched yet
References 12 · Cited by 58
- Authors
- Alshakhs, F., & Alanzi, T.
- Affiliations
- Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University (SA)
- Corresponding author
- Alanzi, Turki
- Venue
- Journal of Multidisciplinary Healthcare
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2018-09
- Volume
- Volume 11
- Pages
- 473-479
- ISSN
- 1178-2390 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC6157575
- OpenAlex
- W2890387794
- Cited by
- 58
- References
- 12
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 11 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 11 · 2021: 12 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 3
- FWCI
- 6.16
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Journal of Multidisciplinary Healthcare (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Dove Medical Press (Taylor and Francis Group) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Health › Social Media in Health Education
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Health Literacy and Information Accessibility
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Mobile Health and mHealth Applications
- Keywords
- social media, health care delivery, healthcare professionals' perceptions, physician attitudes, patient privacy, confidentiality, legal risk, ethical risks, patient education, public health awareness, eastern Saudi Arabia
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
