Health Information and Social Media: A content and thematic analysis of Diabetes information reported on the Saudi Ministry of Health Twitter account, 2015-2018

Abstract

Background: Social media has a significant potential to promote health and other health interventions actions. It tackles many of the limitations of traditional communication through improved accessibility, interaction, engagement, and empowerment. Twitter is a multimedia microblogging tool that millions of people all over the world are actively using online. This study reviewed Twitter updates (Tweets) of the Saudi Ministry of Health that mention “Diabetes” to determine the overarching categories. The purpose of this study is to report a content analysis of the publicly available Twitter webpage of the Saudi Ministry of Health (MOH) updates) that mention Diabetes information to identify the main categories of content in Twitter page of the Saudi MOH from 2015 to 2018. Methods: Eighty-one Twitter updates (Tweets) in the Saudi MOH Twitter page that mentioning “diabetes” were manually selected for content analysis, thematic analysis and categorisation. Results: Of the 2,812 Tweets reported during the review period of the study, 81 updates were categorised into five distinct categories emerged from the author’s coding. The most common tweets included themes on general public awareness (N=55 tweets, 48%), treatment (N= 23 tweets, 20%), prevention (N= 17 tweets, 15%), symptoms (N=15 tweets, 13%) and risk (N=5 tweets, 4 %). In comparison with the year 2016, the number of tweets posted in the year 2017 (N=12) is less but retweets in the year 2016 (N= 5332) are two times more than 2017, and so is the case with likes and comments. It reveals that overall the coverage of tweets increased over the period of review. This result reveals that overall the coverage of tweets increased over the period of review. Conclusion: Social networking sites are effective platforms for health information sharing. Social Media might be an efficient way to aid people overcome diabetes and manage this chronic condition, through online communication with healthcare givers and health-conscious peers. Areas for development in Social Media use to decrease the prevalence of diabetes in KSA involve reinforcing public engagement with Social Media posts on Diabetes. Keywords: Twitter, Social Media content analysis, Health information, Diabetes, The Saudi Ministry of Health.