Unprofessional behaviour on social media by medical students
Abstract
OBJECTIVES: To describe the social media usage patterns of medical students and to identify factors associated with their posting of unprofessional content on social media. DESIGN: Voluntary survey, delivered online. SETTING: All students in all 20 Australian medical schools were eligible to participate (16 993 individuals). PARTICIPANTS: Of 1027 initial respondents during the study period (29 March - 12 August 2013), 880 completed the survey. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Prevalence of unprofessional online behaviour on social media by medical students, as reported by students about their own and others' accounts. RESULTS: Posting of unprofessional content was self-reported by 306 students (34.7%), mainly depictions of intoxication (301 students, 34.2%) or illegal drug use (14 students, 1.6%), or posting of patient information (14 students, 1.6%). Posting of unprofessional content was associated with posting evidence of alcohol use and racist content online, MySpace use, and planning to change one's profile name after graduation. Factors associated with reduced unprofessional content included believing that videos depicting medical events with heavy alcohol use were inappropriate, and being happy with one's own social media portrayal. Exposure to guidelines on professional online conduct had no effect on posting behaviour. CONCLUSIONS: Social media use was nearly universal in the surveyed cohort. Posting of unprofessional content was highly prevalent despite understanding that this might be considered inappropriate, and despite awareness of professionalism guidelines. Medical educators should consider approaches to this problem that involve more than simply providing guidelines or policies, and students should be regularly prompted to evaluate and moderate their own online behaviour.
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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 [42]
The Results (p. 2) report that 70.6% of Facebook-using students restricted content to groups or individuals and 96.9% changed default security settings, matching the claimed range when rounded. The study surveyed medical students, however, so it does not establish that range for health care professionals generally. (LLM, conf=0.86)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredStudies most frequently associate unprofessional behavior on social media with online content pertaining to alcohol intoxication; substance or illegal drug use, nudity, and sexuality; demeaning content about patients, peers, educators, clinical sites, or the profession as a whole; discriminatory content; profanity; and aggressive or bullying content toward coworkers.
“Although there is no uniform consensus on what constitutes unprofessional behavior, studies most frequently associated it with online content pertaining to alcohol intoxication; substance or illegal drug use, nudity, and sexuality; demeaning content about patients, peers, educators, clinical sites, or the profession as a whole; discriminatory content; profanity; and aggressive/bullying content”
From Dangers and Benefits of Social Media on E-Professionalism of Health Care Professionals: Scoping Review (2021) · cites this paper as [42]
The introduction (p. 1) describes improper posts involving profanity, discriminatory language, alcohol intoxication and sexually suggestive material; the abstract (p. 1) also reports illegal drug use and posting patient information. The survey table (p. 5) includes negative discussion of clinical sites. The paper does not establish that studies *most frequently* associate unprofessional behaviour with the full list, and the cited passages do not address nudity, demeaning content about peers or educators, or aggressive or bullying content toward coworkers. (LLM, conf=0.87)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThere is a qualitative distinction between disseminating guidelines and formally integrating social media instruction into medical curricula, which should become imperative for health care professional education at undergraduate, graduate, or continuing medical education levels.
“There is a qualitative distinction between disseminating guidelines and formally integrating SM instruction into medical curricula, which should become imperative for HCP education, undergraduate or graduate level, or continuing medical education [42].”
From Dangers and Benefits of Social Media on E-Professionalism of Health Care Professionals: Scoping Review (2021) · cites this paper as [42]
Split into 2 atoms — 1 confirmed, 1 partially supported, 0 disputed, 0 misattributed, 0 unverifiable. Expand the claim to see per-atom verdicts.
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredOnly 4 studies explicitly stated the percentage of students who had set their Facebook account on private: 37% of pharmacy students, 83.6% and 91% of dental students, and 71% of medical students.
“Only 4 studies explicitly stated the percentage of students who had set their Facebook account on private: 37% of pharmacy students [40], 83.6% and 91% of dental students [64,65], and 71% of medical students [42].”
From Dangers and Benefits of Social Media on E-Professionalism of Health Care Professionals: Scoping Review (2021) · cites this paper as [42]
Surveys 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 [42]
There are no validated instruments for assessing attitude towards e-professionalism of medical and dental students.
“Many studies have investigated aspects of e-professionalism of medical or dental students as future health professionals, but there are no validated instruments made for assessing attitude towards e-professionalism of those two populations.”
From Development and validation of scale for measuring attitudes towards e-professionalism among medical and dental students: SMePROF-S scale (2021) · cites this paper as [22]
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References 11 · Cited by 68
- Authors
- Barlow, C. J., Morrison, S., Stephens, H. O., Jenkins, E., Bailey, M. J., & Pilcher, D.
- Affiliations
- The Alfred Hospital (AU)
- St Vincent's Hospital Melbourne (AU)
- Mayo Clinic (US)
- The Royal Melbourne Hospital (AU)
- Monash University (AU)
- Corresponding author
- Barlow, Christopher J
- Venue
- Medical Journal of Australia
- Publisher
- AMPCo
- Published
- 2015-12
- Volume
- 203
- Issue
- 11
- Pages
- 439-439
- ISSN
- 0025-729X (ISSN-L)
- 1326-5377
- OpenAlex
- W2410798347
- Cited by
- 68
- References
- 11
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 11 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 11 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 11 · 2018: 5 · 2017: 7 · 2016: 5
- FWCI
- 7.07
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- Locations
- The Medical Journal of Australia (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- 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
- social media, medical students, unprofessional behavior, professionalism, alcohol consumption, illicit drug use, patient information disclosure, MySpace, medical education
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Australia, Confidentiality, Female, Humans, Male, Retrospective Studies, Schools, Medical, Students, Medical, Internet, Professional Misconduct, Social Media
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