Examination of Emergency Medicine Physicians’ and Residents’ Twitter Activities During the First Days of the COVID-19 Outbreak

Abstract

Introduction: Social media has become an important element of interaction and found itself a place in every aspect of our lives. This study examined the twitter activities of emergency medicine physicians and residents (EMP&R) about the COVID-19 outbreak. Methods: The study concentrated on Twitter, a major social media network. To identify accounts owned by EMP&R, followers of the official accounts of two emergency medicine physician associations in our country were reviewed. Results: In total, 251 accounts whose owners stated they were EMP&R in their biographies, were public, and had tweeted within the last year were identified. Among the 210 tweets posted about coronavirus, 42.4% contained comments and suggestions, 18.6% institutional announcements, 17.1% news, 14.8% scientific content, and 7.1% contained humor. Conclusion: This study examined the importance of Twitter posts during outbreaks and the attitudes of emergency medicine doctors on this issue. Based on the results, it is thought that EMP&R should share more.

Keywords

• social media
• emergency medicine
• disease outbreaks
• coronavirus