Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Jun 16, 2020
Date Accepted: Oct 26, 2020
Date Submitted to PubMed: Oct 29, 2020
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Use of Facebook as a Communication Tool During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Nationwide Survey Held in Academic Medical Centers Throughout Taiwan
ABSTRACT
Background:
The battle against COVID-19 remains ongoing, and social media has played an important role in both communication and health promotion, particularly for healthcare organizations during the crisis. Taiwan success during the COVID-19 outbreak is well known and their use of social media is one of the key factors towards that success.
Objective:
This nationwide survey taken in Taiwan aimed to explore the use of Facebook by academic medical centers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Methods:
We conducted a nationwide survey of all Facebook fan page posts culled from official accounts of all the medical centers in Taiwan from December 2019 to April 2020. All Facebook posts were categorized into either COVID-19 related posts or non-COVID-19 related posts. COVID-19 related posts were recorded into 4 categories: Policy of Taiwan Centers of Disease Control (TCDC), Gratitude notes, News/regulations of hospitals, and Education. Data from each post was also recorded as follows: date of post, headlines, number of “likes”, number of messages left, number of shares, video or non-video post, and date of search.
Results:
Facebook fan pages taken from 13 academic medical centers involving a total of 1,816 posts were analyzed. From January 2020, the percentage of COVID-19 posts increased rapidly, from 21% (January 2020) to 56.3% (April 2020). The trend surrounding cumulative COVID-19 posts and that of reported confirmed cases was significantly related (Pearson correlation coefficient was 0.93, P<0.001). Pages from private hospitals showed more COVID-19 posts (362 vs. 289), as well as more video posts (72 posts, 19.9% vs. 36 posts, 12.5%, P=0.011), when compared to public hospitals. However, Facebook pages from public hospitals had significantly more “likes”, comments and shares per posts (314, 5, 14, respectively, P<0.001). Additionally, medical centers from different regions displayed different strategies for using video posts on Facebook.
Conclusions:
Social media has been a useful tool for communication during the COVID-19 pandemic. This nationwide survey has helped demonstrate the value of Facebook for all the academic medical centers in Taiwan, along with its engagement efficacy. We believe that the experience of Taiwan and the knowledge it can share will be helpful to healthcare organizations worldwide during our global battle against COVID-19.
Citation
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Copyright
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