Worldwide Presence of National Anesthesia Societies on Four Major Social Networks in 2021: Observational Case Study

Thomas Clavier; Emilie Occhiali; Claire Guenet; Naurine Vannier; Camille Hache; Vincent Compere; Jean Selim; Emmanuel Besnier

doi:10.2196/34549

Worldwide Presence of National Anesthesia Societies on Four Major Social Networks in 2021: Observational Case Study

JMIR Perioper Med. 2022 Jul 20;5(1):e34549. doi: 10.2196/34549.

Authors

Thomas Clavier¹, Emilie Occhiali¹, Claire Guenet², Naurine Vannier², Camille Hache², Vincent Compere¹, Jean Selim¹, Emmanuel Besnier¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Anesthesiology, Critical Care and Perioperative Medicine, Rouen University Hospital, Rouen, France.
² Rouen Medical School, University of Rouen Normandy, Rouen, France.

PMID: 35857379
PMCID: PMC9350816
DOI: 10.2196/34549

Abstract

Background: Although the presence of medical societies on social networks (SNs) could be interesting for disseminating professional information, there is no study investigating their presence on SNs.

Objective: The aim of this viewpoint is to describe the worldwide presence and activity of national anesthesia societies on SNs.

Methods: This observational study assessed the active presence (≥1 post in the year preceding the collection date) of the World Federation of Societies of Anesthesiologists member societies on the SNs Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. We collected data concerning each anesthesia society on the World Federation of Societies of Anesthesiologists website.

Results: Among the 136 societies, 66 (48.5%) had an active presence on at least one SN. The most used SN was Facebook (n=60, 44.1%), followed by Twitter (n=37, 27.2%), YouTube (n=26, 19.1%), and Instagram (n=16, 11.8%). The SN with the largest number of followers was Facebook for 52 (78.8%) societies and Twitter for 12 (18.2%) societies. The number of followers was 361 (IQR 75-1806) on Twitter, 2494 (IQR 1049-5369) on Facebook, 1400 (IQR 303-3058) on Instagram, and 214 (IQR 33-955) on YouTube. There was a strong correlation between the number of posts and the number of followers on Twitter (r=0.95, 95% CI 0.91-0.97; P<.001), Instagram (r=0.83, 95% CI 0.58-0.94; P<.001), and YouTube (r=0.69, 95% CI 0.42-0.85; P<.001). According to the density of anesthetists in the country, there was no difference between societies with and without active SN accounts.

Conclusions: Less than half of national anesthesia societies have at least one active account on SNs. Twitter and Facebook are the most used SNs.

Keywords: Facebook; Instagram; Twitter; YouTube; anaesthesia; social network, social media; society.

©Thomas Clavier, Emilie Occhiali, Claire Guenet, Naurine Vannier, Camille Hache, Vincent Compere, Jean Selim, Emmanuel Besnier. Originally published in JMIR Perioperative Medicine (http://periop.jmir.org), 20.07.2022.