Worldwide Presence of National Anesthesia Societies on Four Major Social Networks in 2021: Observational Case Study

Abstract

Background

Although the presence of medical societies on social networks (SNs) could be interesting for disseminating professional information, there is no study investigating their presence on SNs.

Objective

The aim of this viewpoint is to describe the worldwide presence and activity of national anesthesia societies on SNs.

Methods

This observational study assessed the active presence (≥1 post in the year preceding the collection date) of the World Federation of Societies of Anesthesiologists member societies on the SNs Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. We collected data concerning each anesthesia society on the World Federation of Societies of Anesthesiologists website.

Results

Among the 136 societies, 66 (48.5%) had an active presence on at least one SN. The most used SN was Facebook (n=60, 44.1%), followed by Twitter (n=37, 27.2%), YouTube (n=26, 19.1%), and Instagram (n=16, 11.8%). The SN with the largest number of followers was Facebook for 52 (78.8%) societies and Twitter for 12 (18.2%) societies. The number of followers was 361 (IQR 75-1806) on Twitter, 2494 (IQR 1049-5369) on Facebook, 1400 (IQR 303-3058) on Instagram, and 214 (IQR 33-955) on YouTube. There was a strong correlation between the number of posts and the number of followers on Twitter ( r=0.95, 95% CI 0.91-0.97; P<.001), Instagram ( r=0.83, 95% CI 0.58-0.94; P<.001), and YouTube ( r=0.69, 95% CI 0.42-0.85; P<.001). According to the density of anesthetists in the country, there was no difference between societies with and without active SN accounts.

Conclusions

Less than half of national anesthesia societies have at least one active account on SNs. Twitter and Facebook are the most used SNs.