Social Media Use for Inflammatory Bowel Disease in a Rural Appalachian Population

Tarika Sejal Chowdhary, Jesse Thompson, Swapna Gayam, Tarika Sejal Chowdhary, Jesse Thompson, Swapna Gayam

Abstract

Background: Social media use is prevalent in our society and has become widely used in the health care community. Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients constitute one of the patient populations that benefit from social media use to obtain information on their diseases. West Virginia (WV) is a rural Appalachian state with barriers to internet access and health care and we examined the role that social media plays in patients' lives in this state, which could be reflective of other rural states. Methods: Our patient population consisted of patients, 18-65 years old, who live in WV with a diagnosis of IBD. A 17-question survey was sent to 2,131 patients over a course of 4 weeks through an application called REDCap. Results: We received 624 responses with a 29% response rate. Approximately 30% of patients reported that they used Facebook for IBD-related information, while 4.3% used Instagram. While most (92%) patients preferred information coming from their physician, the majority judged information from the internet to be reliable (39.3%) or neutral (44.9%). Most patients believed that social media had no impact on their disease management (67%), while 30.3% believed it had a positive impact. Almost 45% of patients stated that they wished their physician had a social media account for IBD. Conclusions: Our study shows that patients are interested in obtaining health-related information from social media resources. As physicians, it is our job to point them in the right direction to be able to find reliable information.

Keywords: IBD; rural population; social media; telemedicine.

Conflict of interest statement

No competing financial interests exist.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Social media and inflammatory bowel disease survey. A survey of 17 questions was administered to all participants of the study.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
Social media platforms used with breakdown by education level. Facebook was the most popular social media used, followed by Instagram. All other social media platforms had a smaller user population.
Fig. 3.
Fig. 3.
Topics of interest by education level. The most popular research topics were treatments and coping mechanisms, while the less popular topics were symptoms, diet, disease process, and medications.

Source: PubMed

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