Requests for Diagnoses of Sexually Transmitted Diseases on a Social Media Platform

Alicia L Nobles; Eric C Leas; Benjamin M Althouse; Mark Dredze; Christopher A Longhurst; Davey M Smith; John W Ayers

doi:10.1001/jama.2019.14390

Requests for Diagnoses of Sexually Transmitted Diseases on a Social Media Platform

JAMA. 2019 Nov 5;322(17):1712-1713. doi: 10.1001/jama.2019.14390.

Authors

Alicia L Nobles¹, Eric C Leas², Benjamin M Althouse³, Mark Dredze⁴, Christopher A Longhurst¹, Davey M Smith¹, John W Ayers¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Medicine, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla.
² Department of Family Medicine and Public Health, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla.
³ Institute for Disease Modeling, Bellevue, Washington.
⁴ Department of Computer Science, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland.

Abstract

This study monitored online posts from readers seeking specific health information on a social media platform to evaluate the volume of information requests, whether readers sought an initial or second opinion for diagnosis, and the amount of response time before a reply answer was sent.

MeSH terms

Humans
Information Seeking Behavior*
Sexually Transmitted Diseases* / diagnosis
Social Media* / trends
Time Factors

Grants and funding

T32 DA023356/DA/NIDA NIH HHS/United States