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Vol. 21 - Num. 83

Original Papers

Blogs and social networks as evidence-based care dissemination tools: Cuidando neonatos case

Rosario Ros Navarreta

aEnfermera Especialista en Enfermería Pediátrica. Área de Gestión Clínica del Niño. Hospital Universitario y Politécnico La Fe. Valencia. España.

Correspondence: R Ros. E-mail: rosnav@hotmail.com

Reference of this article: Ros Navarret R. Blogs and social networks as evidence-based care dissemination tools: Cuidando neonatos case. Rev Pediatr Aten Primaria. 2019;21:239-44.

Published in Internet: 12-06-2019 - Visits: 11590

Abstract

Introduction: several studies have identified the lack of knowledge and time as one of the barriers for the application of research findings to clinical practice. The use of information and communication technologies may offer a solution to these problems. Objective: to asses the reach and diffusion of contents published in the Cuidando neonatos blog related to the consumption of evidence in health care.

Material and method: we conducted a cross-sectional descriptive study using Google Analytics and the Directorio Blogger.

Results: there were a total of 645 249 page views in the period under study (November 12, 2014 to September 12, 2018) in the course of 155 874 sessions. Most visits came from Spain and Mexico. Of the 144 published posts, 26 had to do with evidence-based care. The most-viewed post was “RCP neonatal. ¿Repasamos conceptos claves?”, which received 13 649 visits.

Conclusions: the reach of the contents published in the Cuidando neonatos blog and disseminated through its social network profiles demonstrates that blogging can be a powerful tool to facilitate the implementation of evidence-based health care practices in the field of neonatology.

 

Keywords

Evidence-based practice Internet Neonatology Nurse Social media

INTRODUCTION

Promoting and facilitating evidence-based health care is essential to improve the quality and safety of the services provided to patients, but in many instances clinical decision-making is not based on the latest available evidence. Several national and international studies have identified a lack of knowledge1 and time as two of the major barriers that currently hinder the translation of research findings to nursing clinical practice.2-5

The Internet and technological advances are changing how the population communicates and accesses and uses information.6 The latest analysis of the perception of science by society of the Fundación Española para la Ciencia y la Tecnología (Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology, FECYT), the results of which were published in 2017, showed that social media have become the most frequent source of scientific information consulted online.7 If we focus on health care, we find that an increasing number of patients, users and providers are using online platforms and new technologies as tools to obtain information, stay up to date, communicate6 and share experiences and health-related contents that they have generated.8 In recent years, there has been an increase in the use of social networking tools such as Facebook and Twitter, not only to disseminate health-related information but also to access profiles and groups that share research results9-11 and to obtain scientific evidence.12,13 The accessibility,9 quick dissemination1 and versatility in the forms of presentation of content6 make social networks, wiki pages and blogs powerful tools9 in the translation of this type of knowledge and therefore in bridging the gap between the production of evidence and its application in clinical practice.

In 2014, the blog Cuidando neonatos (Caring for newborns) was created with the aim of providing a communication platform for neonatal nurses, parents, paediatricians and other health care professionals in the field of neonatology. Profiles of the blog were created in the Facebook, Twitter and Instagram social networks to increase the dissemination and reach of its posts. The site publishes posts (entries or articles) with contents relevant to the field of neonatology, either for health professionals or families, based on the best-available scientific evidence, giving rise to conversations between the readers and the authors of the blog, consistent with the Web 2.0 philosophy.14,15 The aim of the study was to assess the reach and diffusion of the contents published in the Cuidando neonatos blog related to the evidence-based care and to identify the posts that received the most visits from users.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

We conducted a quantitative, descriptive and cross-sectional study of the blog Cuidando neonatos. The period under study went from November 12, 2014, the date the first blog entry was published, to September 2, 2018, the date that we reviewed the blog. We collected the data using web analytics tools: Directorio Blogger and Google Analytics.

We analysed the posts published under the period mentioned above. We included published entries related to the dissemination of clinical practice guidelines of the National Health System, reviews and resources from the Cochrane database and the Joanna Briggs Institute, reports/documents developed by the World Health Organization, Asociación Española de Pediatría (Spanish Association of Pediatrics), Sociedad Española de Neonatología (Spanish Society of Neonatology), the Ministry of Health, Social Services and Equality of Spain and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The variables analysed in each post were: title, number of visits and main source of the published content.  We collected data related to the audience of the blog: number of users (individuals that opened at least 1 session in the period under study), country of origin, number of sessions (the period of time in which a user interacts with a website) and device used for access.

RESULTS

During the period under study, 118 633 users accessed the Cuidando neonatos blog. Most visits originated from Spain, with 34 133 users (57.32%) and Mexico, with 7834 (13.16%) (Table 1). The devices used most frequently to view the blog were mobile phones (67.15%), followed by computers (27.10%) and tablets (5.76%).

Table 1. Ten most frequent countries of origin of the users that accessed the blog Cuidando neonatos
Ranking Country Users (N = 118 633) %
1 Spain 34 133 57.32 %
2 Mexico 7834 13.16 %
3 Argentina 3628 6.09 %
4 Peru 2494 4.19 %
5 Colombia 2026 3.40 %
6 Ecuador 1542 2.59 %
7 United States 1288 2.16 %
8 Chile 1147 1.93 %
9 Venezuela 980 1.65 %
10 Bolivia 891 1.50 %

During the period under analysis, a total of 645 249 pages were viewed during 155 874 sessions. Of all the site traffic, 45.50% (corresponding to 74 682 sessions by 54 082 users) came from social networks, led by Facebook, which was the main source, corresponding to 69 004 sessions (92.40%). Cuidando neonatos had a total of 8844 followers distributed across Facebook (5938), Twitter (1814) and Instagram (1092).

Of the 144 published posts, 26 were related to evidence-based neonatal care. These were some of the most viewed entries:

  • Most viewed, “RCP neonatal. ¿Repasamos conceptos claves?” (Neonatal CPR. Shall we review key concepts?”), with 13 649 viewed pages, a post created with the aim of disseminating the article “Adaptación de las recomendaciones internacionales en estabilización y reanimación neonatal 2015” published in the journal Anales de Pediatría.
  • Second most viewed, “Y tú… ¿cómo realizas la punción del talón?” (“So… how do you perform the heel puncture?”), which has received 9901 visits and aims to disseminate the contraindications and good practices related with this procedure according to the reports of the Joanna Briggs Institute (Table 2).
Table 2. Posts related to evidence-based care published in the blog Cuidando neonatos
Page views (n) Post title Date of publication Source of information
13 649 RCP neonatal. ¿Repasamos conceptos claves? 04/06/2017 Asociación Española de Pediatría
9901 Y tú… ¿cómo realizas la punción del talón 05/11/2017 Joanna Briggs Institute
8922 Recomendaciones para prevenir la retinopatía de la prematuridad 22/02/2016 Asociación Española de Pediatría
6581 Guía para madres que amamantan 26/03/2017 Clinical Practice Guideline of the National health System of Spain
6726 Nuestros cuidados al final de la vida 02/10/2016 Sociedad Española de Neonatología
6542 Evitemos la neumonía asociada a VMC. ¡Está en nuestras manos! 22/01/2017 Ministry of Health, Social Services and Equality of Spain
5892 Libro blanco de la muerte súbita infantil 01/06/2016 Asociación Española de Pediatría
5739 Unidades de neonatología. Recomendaciones y estándares de calidad 05/06/2016 Ministry of Health, Social Policy and Equality of Spain
5280 Algoritmo reanimación neonatal 05/01/2015 Sociedad Española de Neonatología
4093 Guía de Práctica Clínica: Bronquiolitis aguda 29/02/2016 Clinical Practice Guideline of the National health System of Spain
4039 Guía: Prevención de úlceras por presión en Pediatría 19/10/2015 Clinical Practice Guideline of the National health System of Spain
3386 ¿Conocéis la nueva guía sobre lactancia materna de la OMS? 08/07/2018 World Health Organization
3230 Método canguro durante procedimientos dolorosos 29/04/2018 Cochrane
3051 Seguridad Neonatal 01/08/2016 Ministry of Health, Social Services and Equality of Spain
2966 ¿Conoces la nueva Guía de Práctica Clínica sobre lactancia materna? 23/04/2017 Clinical Practice Guideline of the National health System of Spain
2314 Mejora tus cuidados: Enfermería basada en la evidencia 15/01/2017 Asociación Española de Pediatría
2270 Recomendaciones CDC: Prevención de infecciones en accesos 20/04/2015 CDC
2262 Recomendaciones para profesionales sanitarios que atienden a madres lactantes que precisan ingreso, pruebas… 30/07/2017 Asociación Española de Pediatría
2351 Método canguro. Guía práctica (OMS) 23/07/2015 World Health Organization
1900 Bronquiolitis: ¿Conoces qué evidencia existe en cada práctica que realizas? 11/03/2018 Cochrane
1345 OMS: dudas y mitos sobre inmunización y seguridad de las 15/04/2018 World Health Organization
1245 #Detrasdel20: Valoración y manejo del dolor en Neonatología y Pediatría 25/03/2018

Cochrane

Joanna Briggs Institute

UpToDate

1070 ¿Tomas tus decisiones según la mejor evidencia? 07/01/2018 Cochrane
921 Guía para padres: encefalopatía hipóxica-isquémica e hipotermia terapéutica 08/06/2015 Clinical Practice Guideline of the National health System of Spain
915 ¿Contacto piel con piel durante las cesáreas? 17/12/2017 Asociación Española de Pediatría
902 Cuidados desde el nacimiento 09/03/2015 Ministry of Health and Social Policy of Spain

DISCUSSION

The results of our study evince the potential of social networks to disseminate and share studies related to evidence-based practices, which was consistent with the findings of previous studies at the international level11,13,16 and domestic nursing blogs.6 In addition, it demonstrated the efficacy and therefore the need to design a coordinated strategy for the publication of contents in blogs and their dissemination through social networks for the purpose of promoting the spread of scientific evidence on child health.12 At present, there are still barriers16 to the use of social platforms for the diffusion and consumption of scientific evidence on health care practices, chief among them the perceived reliability1 and quality of the information obtained from these sources.9,17 These facts highlight an opening for the design of future research studies and the need to incorporate new educational strategies at the level of official institutions to include training on digital platform skills in the field of health care.

Identifying which posts have had the greatest impact on readers and establishing the profiles of users can help us design new lines of inquiry and develop content strategies for the blog.

Our study revealed a gradual increase of the international audience and the permanence of followers of Cuidando neonatos among the Latin American population compared to previous studies related to the blog.14,15

There are several possible limitations related to the methodology used in this research inherent to Google Analytics and Directorio Blogger. First of all, these tools cannot be used to determine the profile of blog users (health care provider, parent, caregiver…). Secondly, the mere fact of accessing the contents published in a blog on results of research and health information with evidence of a high-quality does not in and of itself prove a shift towards evidence-based clinical practice. Despite these limitations, the results of our study evince the need to continue investigating the use of blogs and social networks for the diffusion of scientific evidence on health care. Such research can provide the foundation for additional qualitative studies analysing whether the consumption of content published in health blogs leads to changes in clinical practice and in turn to in improved health outcomes in the paediatric population.

CONCLUSIONS

We may conclude that data on the reach of the entries posted in the Cuidando neonatos blog and disseminated through social networks show that blogging can be a tool that facilitates the consumption of information and therefore the implementation of evidence-based care in the field of neonatology.

It is our duty as health providers to develop skills in digital media allowing us to exploit the opportunities afforded by information and communication technologies to share high-quality information on health care and to disseminate and promote the consumption of evidence-based care contents.

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

 

The author has no conflicts of interest to declare in relation to the preparation and publication of this article. A poster on the subject of the study was presented on the I Jornada de Cuidados de Salud Basados en la Evidencia de la Comunidad Valenciana, where it received an award for the second best poster.

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