Social media usage among health care providers

Abstract Objective The objective of this study was to evaluate the use of social media among healthcare workers in an attempt to identify how it affects the quality of patient care. Results An anonymous survey of 35 questions was conducted in South Texas, on 366 healthcare workers. Of the 97% of people who reported owning electronic devices, 87.9% indicated that they used social media. These healthcare workers indicated that they spent approximately 1 h on social media every day. The healthcare workers below the age of 40 were more involved in social media compared to those above 40 (p < 0.05). The use of social media among physicians and nurses was noted to be identical (88% for each group), and both groups encouraged their patients to research their clinical conditions on social media (p < 0.05). A higher number of physicians reported awareness of a social media policy in their hospital compared to nurses (p < 0.05). However, a large proportion of healthcare workers (40%) were unaware of their workplace policy, which could potentially cause a privacy breach of confidential medical information. Further studies are required to evaluate specific effects of these findings on the quality of patient care

Development and validation of a tool to assess knowledge of healthy lifestyles in early grade school children

Abstract Objective Healthy habits during childhood has been of prime importance. We aimed to gather baseline information about health habits from children in kindergarten and first grade (typically ages 5–7). Our objectives were to validate the questionnaire in assessing health habits, as well as the electronic audience response system, iClicker (MPS, Gordonsville, VA), in this age group. Results The questionnaire completed by 75 kindergarteners and 66 first graders. For the first graders, questions involving healthy choices were answered correctly 78% of the time (range 8–94%) and had 84% agreement on repeat testing (range 64–93%). Questions on diabetes were answered correctly 79% of the time (range 65–94%) and had 85% agreement on repeat testing. Crohnbach’s alpha was calculated to determine the reliability of the questionnaire: on the revised kindergarten questionnaire, this ranged from 0.79 to 0.81 on Day 1 and 0.84–0.97 on Day 5; for the first graders, this ranged 0.79–0.81 on Day 1 and 0.84–0.97 on Day 5. Both kindergarteners and first graders answered the simplest of the basic knowledge questions correctly > 80% of the time, with acceptable test–retest agreement. Additionally, these children demonstrated acceptable understanding of the use of the iClicker classroom response system