Journal of medical Internet research
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J. Med. Internet Res. · Jan 2014
Tweeting for and against public health policy: response to the Chicago Department of Public Health's electronic cigarette Twitter campaign.
In January 2014, the Chicago City Council scheduled a vote on local regulation of electronic cigarettes as tobacco products. One week prior to the vote, the Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH) released a series of messages about electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) through its Twitter account. Shortly after the messages, or tweets, were released, the department's Twitter account became the target of a "Twitter bomb" by Twitter users sending more than 600 tweets in one week against the proposed regulation. ⋯ Our findings may assist public health organizations to anticipate, recognize, and respond to coordinated social media campaigns.
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J. Med. Internet Res. · Jan 2014
Medical students and personal smartphones in the clinical environment: the impact on confidentiality of personal health information and professionalism.
Smartphones are becoming ubiquitous in health care settings. The increased adoption of mobile technology such as smartphones may be attributed to their use as a point-of-care information source and to perceived improvements in clinical communication and efficiency. However, little is known about medical students' use of personal smartphones for clinical work. ⋯ Our findings suggest that the use of personal smartphones for clinical work by medical students is prevalent. There is a need to more fully address the threat to patient confidentiality posed by the use of unsecured communication devices such as smartphones.
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J. Med. Internet Res. · Jan 2014
mHealth and mobile medical Apps: a framework to assess risk and promote safer use.
The use of mobile medical apps by clinicians and others has grown considerably since the introduction of mobile phones. Medical apps offer clinicians the ability to access medical knowledge and patient data at the point of care, but several studies have highlighted apps that could compromise patient safety and are potentially dangerous. ⋯ We have also developed a simple generic risk framework that app users, developers, and other stakeholders can use to assess the likely risks posed by a specific app in a specific context. This should help app commissioners, developers, and users to manage risks and improve patient safety.
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J. Med. Internet Res. · Dec 2013
The effect of patient narratives on information search in a web-based breast cancer decision aid: an eye-tracking study.
Previous research has examined the impact of patient narratives on treatment choices, but to our knowledge, no study has examined the effect of narratives on information search. Further, no research has considered the relative impact of their format (text vs video) on health care decisions in a single study. ⋯ The observed increase in fixation duration with video patient testimonials is consistent with the idea that the vividness of the video content could cause greater elaboration of the message, thereby encouraging greater information search. Conversely, because reading requires more effortful processing than watching, reading patient narratives may have decreased participant motivation to engage in more reading in the remaining sections of the Web decision aid. These findings suggest that the format of patient stories may be equally as important as their content in determining their effect on decision making. More research is needed to understand why differences in format result in fundamental differences in information search.
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J. Med. Internet Res. · Nov 2013
The good, bad, and ugly of online recruitment of parents for health-related focus groups: lessons learned.
We describe our experiences with identifying and recruiting Ontario parents through the Internet, primarily, as well as other modes, for participation in focus groups about adding the influenza vaccine to school-based immunization programs. ⋯ Using multiple online advertising strategies was effective for recruiting a large sample of participants in a relatively short period time with minimal resources. However, risks such as multiple submissions and potentially fraudulent information need to be considered. In our study, these problems were associated with providing an incentive for responding, and could have been partially avoided by activating restrictive software features for online questionnaires.