Social media and health-related information: Surveys development and validation

Introduction: Analyzing social media, insights about how products or services are perceived and used by customers can bring useful information. The aim of this study was to develop and validate 4 self-administered questionnaires to be used in the assessment of how consumers, healthcare professionals, medical students and healthcare providers use social media to retrieve health-related information. Methods: A 6 steps process was defined and applied: literature review, construct definition, survey writing, testing, reconciliation, and revision. The questionnaires had 3 focus areas: general usage, medical information retrieval, and demographics. Results: The student's questionnaires was not validated due to a low response rate (2.76% - 95%CI [1.38-4.83]). The questionnaire for healthcare providers went ahead without any changes. The validation of healthcare consumer's and healthcare practitioner's questionnaires led to changes. Conclusions: Three out of four questionnaires were successfully validated and proved reliable instruments to measure the use of social media in retrieving medical information.