Social networks can be useful to doctors
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
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Social networks, as noted earlier by experts, have a negative impact on people, in particular social media enthusiasm can lead to low self-esteem, anxiety and even suicide.
But in the latest study, experts came to the conclusion that social networks can help physicians and their patients. Doctors will be better prepared to receive the patient, to communicate with him.
Such conclusions were made by specialists at the University of Vancouver. As is known, recently more and more users are turning to the Internet to search for information on health, however, who was involved in the online discussions on medical topics remained unknown.
To find out, the scientists studied Internet correspondence in the social network Twitter for six months, devoted to research in the field of stem cells and spinal cord injuries and Parkinson's disease.
As a result, it turned out that 25% of the messages affected the spinal cord injuries more or less, and 15% - Parkinson's disease and were written by doctors.
A huge number of reports contained information about new developments of scientists, including medical breakthroughs in this field.
Most often, users wrote links to unique research and news. Users who wrote about spinal cord injuries discussed clinical trials conducted by specialists, and the group that wrote about Parkinson's disease more often talked about new methods and mechanisms of treatment.
Less than 5% of messages from users were negative and related to research in the field of stem cells.
At the beginning of their research, specialists believed that most users were skeptical about new methods of treatment.
As noted by scientists, you should use social networks more often to track the mood of patients.
Another interesting discovery was made by specialists from Melbourne and Pennsylvania. In their work, they also explored social networks, in particular Twitter, and came to the conclusion that this social network can tell about the risks of cardiovascular diseases.
In the microblogging of users reflects the psychological mood of society. As the study showed, negative emotions in tweets (fatigue, anger, stress) were related to an increased risk of developing cardiovascular diseases, and positive emotions, for example, optimism, accordingly reduced the probability of pathology.
In this study, there was one interesting point - as is known, in most cases people die from cardiovascular diseases who hold a negative in themselves, those who are surrounded by a negative atmosphere (problems at work, in the family, with friends, etc., are at particular risk) ).
After evaluating the messages written by users in 2009-2010, the scientists studied tweets and data on the health of people from more than a thousand counties. Experts analyzed the emotions of people, given the words they used in tweets.
The goal was to identify the relationship between health and the emotional state of users. As a result, it was found that frequent use of curses increased the risk of death from cardiovascular pathologies. Also, scientists took into account other factors - the level of education, income, etc.
These findings are confirmed by another study that showed that people who are negative are more likely to suffer from heart and vascular disease, they are more prone to alcoholism, are prone to eating harmful foods, avoid contact with others.
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