Naslov
Doctor-Patient Interactions on SNS among Doctors of Medicine and Dental Medicine

Autori
Marelić, Marko ; Vukušić Rukavina, Tea

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Poglavlja u knjigama, znanstveni

Knjiga
Preserving, evaluating and developing the Mediterranean

Urednik/ci
Jurčević, Katica ; Kaliterna Lipovčan, Ljiljana ; Medić, Rino ; Ramljak, Ozana

Izdavač
Institute of Social Sciences Ivo Pilar ; VERN' University ; Scientific Council for Anthropological Research, Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts (HAZU)

Grad
Zagreb

Godina
2023

Raspon stranica
461-469

ISBN
978-953-8404-20-7

Ključne riječi
Social network sites ; e-professionalism ; medicine ; dental medicine

Sažetak
Communication between doctors and patients is a specific form of communication and it is of great interest for the medical and dental profession as well as for broader society. Social networks sites (SNS) are part of everyday life and a large number of and large part of online communication is now conducted over SNS. The aim of this paper is to investigate whether and to what extent doctors of medicine (MD) and doctors of dental medicine (DMD) interact with patients on SNS and to determine are there differences in doctor-patient interactions between these two medical professions. A quantitative cross-sectional questionnaire study was conducted on a convenient sample of all Croatian MDs and DMDs, from February to May 2021. A total of 1013 questionnaires were collected, out of which 753 entered the analysis as SNS users. Results show that both MDs and DMDs had interactions with patients on SNS. In the sample, 42% of them visited the profile of their patient or patient’s family, where DMDs did that statistically significantly more often than MDs (60.6% vs 33.3%, P<.01). Most reported reason for visiting their profiles was “curiosity” (77%), almost twice as much as “gathering information for medical care” (38%) or “social communication” (37%). Both MDs and DMDs received “friend requests” from patients or their family (72%), where DMDs significantly more often accepted those requests (U=22636.5, P<.01). An important difference found between MDs and DMDs is in initiation of “friend requests” towards patients, where DMDs had done that significantly more (15% vs 3, 4%, P<.01). These results show that doctor- patient interactions exist on SNS and that MDs and DMDs differ in the proportion of connecting with patients. It also means that it is necessary to further consider the balance between the dangers and advantages of SNS, and find safe way to facilitate doctor-patient interactions on SNS.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Javno zdravstvo i zdravstvena zaštita, Sociologija

POVEZANOST RADA