JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Social media is a crucial source of health information for many parents due to its integration into modern life, raising critical concerns for public health. Parents use various social media platforms to find health information for their children, with most information created and shared by parents with no medical or health training. The extent to which parents seek health information from social media pre- and post- consultation and their motivations for doing so remain under-researched.

Objective:

To investigate Australian parents’ use of social media for health information for their children, aged between 6 months and 5 years, including before and after consulting health care professionals.

Methods:

A representative cross-sectional survey of 1000 Australian parents with children aged 6 months to 5 years was conducted between November to December 2021. Data were cleaned and analysed using IBM SPSS. The primary outcomes were: 1. Parental motivation and prevalence of social media use for health information; and 2. Parental motivation for using social media before and after a consultation with their children’s health care professional.

Results:

Of the 1000 parents surveyed, 82.2% reported using social media for health information for their child. Parents were more likely to consult social media before and after a health consultation if they were aged 30-39 or over 50 and were born in Australia. Parents with higher levels of education were less likely to consult social media. Parents were motivated to seek health information prior to a consultation for a variety of reasons, including exchanging opinions and experiences (83.3%), the information is available 24/7 (81.1%), receiving emotional support (78.1%), previous positive experiences (77.8%), and because they have friends and family that use social media for health information (75.2%). Parents sought information post-consultation to connect with parents who have had similar experiences (68.8%), for second opinions (63.6%), to fact-check information provided by their health care professional (60.8%), and to look for other treatment options (60.2%).

Conclusions:

Using social media for child health information is part of the modern parenting experience. It can be challenging to discern the quality of health information on social media, leaving parents open to incorrect information and misinformation. While access to immediate social support is a welcome feature of social media, receiving incorrect health information can have unwanted consequences for the child, family, health provider, and the wider community. The upskilling of parental health literacy to navigate the unique health literacy challenges that social media brings, alongside the creation and delivery of accessible, evidence-based information in varying formats is urgently required. The provision of this information is the responsibility of every level of the health system, not just the treating health care professional.