Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Formative Research
Date Submitted: Dec 22, 2022
Open Peer Review Period: Dec 22, 2022 - Feb 16, 2023
Date Accepted: Mar 3, 2023
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited.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.
Analysis of Facebook pages, providing information on oral ulcers.
ABSTRACT
Background:
Facebook is still one of the commonly accessed social media platforms and the primary source of news information, including health information, for a large percentage of American adults. However, there is little information available on the quality of information on oral ulcers.
Objective:
Our objectives was to determine the type, accuracy, and content of information available on Facebook regarding recurrent oral ulcers.
Methods:
With the increasing numbers of active users, Facebook posts constitute communication channels for health information for professionals and non-professionals alike. We collected Faceboook posts collected through keyword searching using duplicate, newly created accounts and then anonymized and filtered using exclusion criteria established by two dentists working in tandem. Filtered results were manually text-mined to qualitatively determine pages containing oral ulcer content.
Results:
We found that 30% of the sites in our data set were categorized as health and beauty or as product/service; 10% as medical/health and 17% as community. There was little of information on prevention of oral ulcer, long-term treatment, and complications.
Conclusions:
The primary use of Facebook in oral ulcer information dissemination appears to be as an adjunct to a business enterprise, for marketing or enhancement of access to a product. Clinical Trial: Not applicable
Citation
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