Twitter and Diabetes

Twitter use is surprisingly well represented across broad demographic population segments and health-related messages. The promise of using Twitter is that its use is growing rapidly, it allows the investigators to view communications that were impossible to intercept before, and it potentially provides information faster and less expensively than collection from other media channels. Prior work also supports that social media interventions can improve health behavior change (e.g. weight loss, physical activity) and outcomes.The overarching goals of this proposal are to understand the uses and limitations of this communication channel to improve patients' ability to manage their CV health condition.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Cardiovascular Disease; Diabetes
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Twitter Diabetes Intervention

Detailed Description

Use Twitter to deliver high impact CV health related content to improve patient activation and disease management for diabetes.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 628
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • Pennsylvania
    • Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, 19104
      • University of Pennsylvania

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 21 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• diabetes
• uses social media

Exclusion Criteria:

• <21 years of age
• pregnant

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Health Services Research
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
No Intervention: Twitter Diabetes Control; This group will be identified as having diabetes from Twitter. This group will be contacted and asked to complete brief surveys
Experimental: Twitter Diabetes Intervention; This group will be identified as having diabetes from Twitter. This group will be contacted and asked to complete brief surveys. This group will be asked to use twitter for heart health ( e.g. tweeting, following, receiving tweets)	Behavioral: Twitter Diabetes Intervention; This group will be asked to use twitter for heart health ( e.g. tweeting, following, receiving tweets)

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change in Patient Activation Measure (PAM) Score From Baseline	The Patient Activation Measure (PAM) is a validated and reliable tool that assesses a person's ability to manage their health, using a 100-point total score scale and four activation levels. The total score ranges from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating better outcomes-specifically, higher scores represent better outcomes. The overall score is summed from individual items, reflecting the level of activation and self-management ability. The four levels are: Level 1 (Score: 0-47.0): Lowest activation, indicating disengagement and lack of confidence in managing health. Level 2 (Score: 47.1-55.1): Some awareness of self-management but limited skills and confidence. Level 3 (Score: 55.2-67.0): Actively trying to manage health but inconsistent success. Level 4 (Score: 67.1-100): Highest activation, indicating confidence and proactive health management.	baseline and 6 months

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change in Systolic Blood Pressure From Baseline	Initial systolic blood pressure (SBP) measurements were obtained from the electronic medical record (EMR). For the majority of patients, final blood pressure measurements (i.e., the 6-month measurement) were obtained in a five to eight month period after enrollment from a documented reading in the the EMR. For patients who did not have a documented SBP reading in the health system during this time period, we requested that patients either meet our team in person for a manual reading or provide a photograph from their mobile phone of the screen showing their SBP reading from a home blood pressure cuff, pharmacy machine, or doctor's office from outside of our health system.	baseline and 6 months

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: University of Pennsylvania
• Collaborators: National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI)

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): June 1, 2016
• Primary Completion (Actual): May 1, 2018
• Study Completion (Actual): August 1, 2018

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: June 16, 2016
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: June 20, 2016
• First Posted (Estimated): June 21, 2016

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): October 21, 2024
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: October 2, 2024
• Last Verified: October 1, 2024

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Diabetes; Social Media
• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Glucose Metabolism Disorders; Metabolic Diseases; Endocrine System Diseases; Cardiovascular Diseases; Diabetes Mellitus
• Other Study ID Numbers: R01: HL122457-0IA1; R01HL122457-01A1 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No