JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Social media plays an increasingly important role in everyday life, impacting patients' understanding of their health and influencing their choice of clinician.

Objective:

We reviewed the professional social media habits of Australian dermatologists, to describe the factors that influence practitioners' online presence.

Methods:

We used Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) and Australian College of Dermatology (ACD) data to collate demographic information of Australian dermatologists, and then searched each clinician's professional social media presence across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, ResearchGate, LinkedIn, and Tiktok.

Results:

Of 391 Australia-based private dermatologists, 45.8% have a LinkedIn account, and 26.3% use Facebook in a professional capacity. In decreasing frequency of use follow ResearchGate, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and TikTok respectively; 99.7% of Australian dermatologists do not use TikTok. There were no significant differences in average number of accounts by location of practice (p=0.89), sex (p=0.34), or duration of practice (p=0.18). Group practitioners however were more likely than sole practitioners to hold professional social media accounts (p=0.0025).

Conclusions:

Australian dermatologists, regardless of most demographic influences, have a limited online presence, with no social media platform attracting more than half the cohort.