Defining Potentially Unprofessional Behavior on Social Media for Health Care Professionals: Mixed Methods Study
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Background: Social media presence among health care professionals is ubiquitous and largely beneficial for their personal and professional lives. New standards are forming in the context of e-professionalism, which are loosening the predefined older and offline terms. With these benefits also come dangers, with exposure to evaluation on all levels from peers, superiors, and the public, as witnessed in the #medbikini movement. Objective: The objectives of this study were to develop an improved coding scheme (SMePROF coding scheme) for the assessment of unprofessional behavior on Facebook of medical or dental students and faculty, compare reliability between coding schemes used in previous research and SMePROF coding scheme, compare gender-based differences for the assessment of the professional content on Facebook, validate the SMePROF coding scheme, and assess the level of and to characterize web-based professionalism on publicly available Facebook profiles of medical or dental students and faculty. Methods: A search was performed via a new Facebook account using a systematic probabilistic sample of students and faculty in the University of Zagreb School of Medicine and School of Dental Medicine. Each profile was subsequently assessed with regard to professionalism based on previously published criteria and compared using the SMePROF coding scheme developed for this study. Results: Intercoder reliability increased when the SMePROF coding scheme was used for the comparison of gender-based coding results. Results showed an increase in the gender-based agreement of the final codes for the category professionalism, from 85% in the first phase to 96.2% in the second phase. Final results of the second phase showed that there was almost no difference between female and male coders for coding potentially unprofessional content for students (7/240, 2.9% vs 5/203, 2.5%) or for coding unprofessional content for students (11/240, 4.6% vs 11/203, 5.4%). Comparison of definitive results between the first and second phases indicated an understanding of web-based professionalism, with unprofessional content being very low, both for students (9/222, 4.1% vs 12/206, 5.8%) and faculty (1/25, 4% vs 0/23, 0%). For assessment of the potentially unprofessional content, we observed a 4-fold decrease, using the SMePROF rubric, for students (26/222, 11.7% to 6/206, 2.9%) and a 5-fold decrease for faculty (6/25, 24% to 1/23, 4%). Conclusions: SMePROF coding scheme for assessing professionalism of health-care professionals on Facebook is a validated and more objective instrument. This research emphasizes the role that context plays in the perception of unprofessional and potentially unprofessional content and provides insight into the existence of different sets of rules for web-based and offline interaction that marks behavior as unprofessional. The level of e-professionalism on Facebook profiles of medical or dental students and faculty available for public viewing has shown a high level of understanding of e-professionalism.
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The correct answer for ePACI was defined using the SMePROF rubric for assessment of unprofessional content on Facebook.
“The correct answer was defined using the SMePROF rubric for the assessment of unprofessional content on Facebook developed in Vukušić Rukavina et al. (SMePROF rubric) [40].”
The SMePROF rubric can be used to assess online content and classify it into one of three distinct categories: professional, potentially unprofessional, and unprofessional.
“The SMePROF rubric, whose design is based on current perceptions of professional online behaviour, can be used to assess online content and classify it into one of three distinct categories: professional, potentially unprofessional, and unprofessional.”
A novel 'Social Media e-Professionalism' (SMePROF) coding scheme, including the SMePROF rubric for assessment of unprofessional content on Facebook, has been developed by Vukušić Rukavina et al.
“A novel “Social Media e-Professionalism” (SMePROF) coding scheme, that includes the SMePROF rubric for assessment of unprofessional content on Facebook, has been developed by Vukušić Rukavina et al. [40].”
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
Viskić, J., Marelić, M., Machala Poplašen, L., & Vukušić Rukavina, T. (2022) · BMC Medical Ethics · doi:10.1186/s12910-022-00870-0 · Cited by 10 · see citing works
Self-citation
- Authors
- Vukušić Rukavina, T., Machala Poplašen, L., Majer, M., Relić, D., Viskić, J., & Marelić, M.
- Affiliations
- University of Zagreb (HR)
- Corresponding author
- Marelić, Marko
- ORCID
- Venue
- JMIR Medical Education
- Publisher
- JMIR Publications Inc.
- Published
- 2022-08-09
- Volume
- 8
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- e35585
- ISSN
- 2369-3762 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC9399843
- OpenAlex
- W4283659658
- Cited by
- 12
- References
- 61
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 1
- FWCI
- 2.11
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- JMIR Medical Education (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
- 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
- e-professionalism, unprofessional behavior, Facebook profiles, medical students, dental students, healthcare workers, intercoder reliability, gender differences, medical education, faculty professionalism
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