Perceptions of nursing students regarding responsible use of social media in the Eastern Cape
Open accessAbstract
Background: Social media have become a popular communication system that has transformed communication from the traditional to the Web-based model. Because social media use has no limitations to place and time, it is now used extensively at clinical facilities. Social media useis becoming a popular activity amongst students at Nursing Education Institutions (NEI) in South Africa. However, lack of accountability and unethical use of social media by nursing students in South Africa has been reported.Objectives: The aim of the study was to explore and describe the perceptions of nursing students regarding responsible use of social media.Methods: A qualitative, descriptive, explorative and contextual research design was used to explore and describe the perceptions of nursing students regarding the responsible use of social media. Twelve nursing students registered for the undergraduate nursing degree were purposely selected and interviewed individually using a semi-structured interview method.Results: The results of this research study demonstrate that nursing students use socialmedia irresponsibly. Nursing students experience blurred boundaries between personal and professional lines and lack accountability when using social media.Conclusion: The extensive use of social media in the clinical environment, by healthcare students, requires a joint effort by Nursing Education Institutions and healthcare facilities to ensure that social media are used in an ethically acceptable manner. The implementation of the recommendations of this research study could positively influence legally and ethically acceptable use of social media at healthcare facilities.
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A study among South African nurses established that they experience difficulty in separating their professional and personal lives when using social media.
“A study among South African nurses established that they experience difficulty in separating their professional and personal lives when using SM [73].”
From Dangers and Benefits of Social Media on E-Professionalism of Health Care Professionals: Scoping Review (2021) · cites this paper as [73]
The Results section, under “Theme Two,” says participants had difficulty separating their professional and personal lives when using social media. However, the study participants were nursing students in South Africa, not nurses generally, so the citing sentence broadens the population studied. (LLM, conf=0.87)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredProfessional networking and collaborations on social media enable development and building of professional identities for health care professions.
“Professional networking and collaborations on SM enable the development and building of professional identities for health care professions [34,38,39,45,67,73,104].”
From Dangers and Benefits of Social Media on E-Professionalism of Health Care Professionals: Scoping Review (2021) · cites this paper as [73]
The Introduction describes social media as a way for health professionals and students to communicate, learn from peers, and seek specialist guidance. It does not say that professional networking or collaboration builds professional identities; the Discussion instead focuses on difficulties distinguishing personal from professional roles. Our copy provides no page numbers for these passages. (LLM, conf=0.78)
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 [73]
The Results (Sub-theme One) describe nursing students forming unprofessional relationships with patients, and the Discussion identifies these as breaches of professional boundaries. The paper discusses blurred personal and professional roles, but the passages do not document blurred boundaries between students and faculty. (LLM, conf=0.86)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredSurveys that captured students' self-report of posted unprofessional behavior reported witnessing the investigated examples with varying frequencies.
“Surveys that captured students’ self-report of posted unprofessional behavior (eg, evidence of being intoxicated, illegal drug use, posting patient information, sharing clinical images inappropriately, and depictions of an illegal act) reported witnessing the investigated examples with varying frequencies [32,42,43,55,59,62,64,73,114,118].”
From Dangers and Benefits of Social Media on E-Professionalism of Health Care Professionals: Scoping Review (2021) · cites this paper as [73]
The Results (Sub-theme Five; page not available) report a participant receiving recordings and photographs of patients and clinical procedures, supporting the claim that students encountered some inappropriate posts. But Data collection describes semi-structured interviews, not a survey, and the paper does not give varying frequencies for the listed behaviors. (LLM, conf=0.87)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredBoundaries 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 [73]
The Results (Sub-theme One; page unavailable) report nursing students forming casual, unprofessional relationships with patients, supporting the patient–healthcare professional part of the claim. The paper’s discussion of blurred boundaries concerns students’ private and professional roles online, not boundaries between students and faculty; our copy does not support that part. (LLM, conf=0.88)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
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 [73]
Nursing students took pictures, recorded video and audio clips of patients and clinical interactions involving patients, and posted this information on social media, compromising confidentiality.
“They took pictures, recorded video and audio clips of patients and of clinical interactions involving patients, and posted this information on SM compromising confidentiality [73].”
From Dangers and Benefits of Social Media on E-Professionalism of Health Care Professionals: Scoping Review (2021) · cites this paper as [73]
Nursing students in South Africa admitted that there is no responsible use of social media.
“In an exploratory qualitative study among nursing students in South Africa, students admitted that there is no responsible use of SM.”
From Dangers and Benefits of Social Media on E-Professionalism of Health Care Professionals: Scoping Review (2021) · cites this paper as [73]
Each nursing student perceives responsible use of social media differently.
“They have stated that each of them perceives responsible use of SM differently.”
From Dangers and Benefits of Social Media on E-Professionalism of Health Care Professionals: Scoping Review (2021) · cites this paper as [73]
Professional networking and collaborations on social media enable the development and building of professional identities for health care professions.
“Professional networking and collaborations on SM enable the development and building of professional identities for health care professions [34,38,39,45,67,73,104].”
From Dangers and Benefits of Social Media on E-Professionalism of Health Care Professionals: Scoping Review (2021) · cites this paper as [73]
The Introduction (page not provided) describes social media as a way to communicate and seek clinical expertise. The Results and Discussion (pages not provided) address nursing students’ difficulty separating personal and professional roles online. Searches for professional identity formation, networking, and collaboration found no passage linking those activities to the development of professional identities. (LLM, conf=0.72)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
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- Authors
- Nyangeni, T., Du Rand, S., & Van Rooyen, D.
- Venue
- Curationis
- Publisher
- AOSIS
- Published
- 2015-07-23
- Volume
- 38
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 1496-1496
- ISSN
- 0379-8577 (ISSN-L)
- 2223-6279
- PMC
- PMC6091745
- OpenAlex
- W1635800000
- Cited by
- 56
- References
- 39
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 10 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 8 · 2016: 2
- FWCI
- 5.80
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- Curationis (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Nelson Mandela University Research Repository (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Eli Lilly and Company
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Health › Social Media in Health Education
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Impact of Technology on Adolescents
- Social Sciences › Demography › Cyberloafing and Workplace Behavior
- Keywords
- social media use, nursing students, responsible social media use, social media ethics, professional boundaries, personal and professional boundaries, accountability, nursing education, clinical settings, Eastern Cape
- MeSH terms
- Confidentiality, Humans, Perception, Social Responsibility, Students, Nursing, Internet, Social Media
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