9.Preferences and Attitudes of Orthodontic Patients on Use of Social Media in Saudi Arabia
Rabia Bilal
ABSTRACT
Objective: The objective of the study was to find out how orthodontic patients use social media sites to share their treatment-related experiences and attitudes, whether orthodontic patients use the Internet and social media sites as a source for orthodontic information
Study Design: cross sectional study
Place and Duration of Study: This study was conducted at the E-Questionnaire was shared on various social media accounts and data was collected from January to March 2017.
Materials and Methods: The questionnaire included questions pertaining to socio-demographic characteristics, availability of social media accounts, whether the patients follow any oral health related accounts; and, whether their reliability on those accounts depends on the number of followers, the comments, before and after photos or the reliability of the account owner.
Results: 86.80% of males said that they have never shared their orthodontic experience online, 87.20% of females said that they rely on the information if the owner of the account was an orthodontist. A small percentage of patients (23.4%) said they rely on information available to them on social media. The reason of reliance was that the owner of that social media account is an orthodontist. Only 6% of the participants stated they followed the account because of the number of followers.
Conclusion: Twitter was the most used social networking site among orthodontic patients, followed by Instagram. The majority of patients had never shared their Orthodontic experience on social networking sites and most patients would like their healthcare providers to communicate with them, providing the information via videos.
Key Words: Social media, orthodontic treatment, twitter, Instagram, face book
Citation of article: Bilal R. Preferences and Attitudes of Orthodontic Patients on Use of Social Media in Saudi Arabia. Med Forum 2021;32(8):37-41.