Institutional health communication and social media: Exploring Italian hospitals' use of social media pages

Introduction: Hospitals play a potentially crucial role in public health, and social media can be powerful tools to reach their target audiences but are hospitals exploiting them to their full potential? Methods: We retrieved the institutional webpages and the social media profiles (Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), YouTube, LinkedIn, WhatsApp and Telegram) of all Italian public hospitals located in regional capitals (N = 194). From 1 March to 30 April 2022, we analysed these profiles, noting the number of followers and of posts published, the date of the last post, and the availability of a social media policy. We selected the most active 53 social media profiles (belonging to 33 hospital facilities) for a closer content analysis. Engagement was measured through numbers of reactions, comments and shares to posts published from 1 to 30 April 2022. Results: About 36.6% of hospitals had a social media profile, and 18.3% had a social media policy. Most (87%) used Facebook as their main platform. They posted most frequently about hospital events and activities (48.3% of the socially active set). Overall, engagement was modest, as on average 0.62% of potential users reacted to a post. The same post often appeared without modifications across different platforms (82.3% of cases for Instagram, 37.8% for X (Twitter) compared to Facebook). Conclusions: Italian public hospitals did not seem to have a clear social media policy nor strategy, and social media remained underused. Italian hospitals, therefore, appeared to be missing valuable opportunities to reach out to their patients and communities

Institutional health communication and social media: Exploring Italian hospitals’ use of social media pages

Introduction Hospitals play a potentially crucial role in public health, and social media can be powerful tools to reach their target audiences but are hospitals exploiting them to their full potential?Methods We retrieved the institutional webpages and the social media profiles (Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), YouTube, LinkedIn, WhatsApp and Telegram) of all Italian public hospitals located in regional capitals (N = 194). From 1 March to 30 April 2022, we analysed these profiles, noting the number of followers and of posts published, the date of the last post, and the availability of a social media policy. We selected the most active 53 social media profiles (belonging to 33 hospital facilities) for a closer content analysis. Engagement was measured through numbers of reactions, comments and shares to posts published from 1 to 30 April 2022.Results About 36.6% of hospitals had a social media profile, and 18.3% had a social media policy. Most (87%) used Facebook as their main platform. They posted most frequently about hospital events and activities (48.3% of the socially active set). Overall, engagement was modest, as on average 0.62% of potential users reacted to a post. The same post often appeared without modifications across different platforms (82.3% of cases for Instagram, 37.8% for X (Twitter) compared to Facebook).Conclusions Italian public hospitals did not seem to have a clear social media policy nor strategy, and social media remained underused. Italian hospitals, therefore, appeared to be missing valuable opportunities to reach out to their patients and communities

The newspaper coverage of public health policies and scientific research: lessons learned by the Italian National Institute of Health during the Covid-19 pandemic

Background: Most articles in the corpus appeared in Corriere della Sera (31,8%) in March 2022 (17,6%). Preliminary results show that across all publications special attention is paid to the semantic and discursive aspects related to the use of a specialized lexicon or register in journalistic texts. Terms such as “serological” (sierologico, 252.97 fpmw), “swab” (tampone, 1637.68 fpmw) and “R-value” (indice R, 83.56 fpmw) are often singled out and explained using lexicographic strategies (definitions, paraphrases, and synonyms); however, concordances show significant semantic shifts from scientific-institutional to journalistic use of such words in context. Conclusions: The linguistic analysis has shown the friction between medico-scientific, institutional, and journalistic narratives of the pandemic. The project aims to further this analysis by building a multidisciplinary research team comprising medical practitioners, public health researchers, linguists, and journalists, to reflect on these clashes and to develop best practices to face possible future public health crises

How Distressed Are Adolescent Students? A Mix-Method Study on High School Students in Northern Italy, Two Years after the Beginning of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Adolescence is a central phase for the development of a person’s identity, involving complex multidimensional changes and increasing vulnerability to distress. This study aimed to investigate the psychological well-being of adolescent students in Brescia (Northern Italy), two years after the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. An online survey investigated the extent and the reasons reported by high school students (13–21 years) for their emotional distress (ED), also considering other factors such as physical activity, nutrition, sleep and smartphone overuse. The main reasons for ED were classified through a qualitative analysis of the free-text answers. A total of 1686 students agreed to participate, and 50% showed a presence of ED. According to a multiple logistic analysis, adolescents were more at risk of ED if they were female (AdjOR 2.3), older (AdjOR 1.6), slept less than 8 h (AdjOR 1.5), perceived increased anxiety (AdjOR 3.4), and adopted certain eating behaviors, e.g., comfort food consumption (AdjOR 2.0). According to free-text answers, the main reasons for ED were “school pressure”, “relationships with family and peers”, “negative emotional states” and “the pandemic”. The results show a high level of ED among adolescents, and the reported reasons may help to better address their psychological needs after the pandemic