The attitude of Kurdistan health professionals about the role of SM and messaging apps in public health awareness and promotion
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15218/hcchs.2023.07Abstract
Background and objective: The emergence of social media (SM) and social networking services to communicate in real time and on the go by patients and health professionals was recognized as an important public health development more than a decade ago. Nowadays using social media and messaging apps for communicating health issues is increasing. This study aimed to assess the attitude of Kurdistan health professionals regarding the role of social media and messaging apps in public health awareness and promotion.
Methods: 311 health professionals of different medical and paramedical specialties were required to participate in an online survey during July 2022. Data were collected through a questionnaire format in Google form which was made by researchers and included socio-demographic data of the study sample and questions regarding social media and messaging apps and their role in health promotions. Frequency, percentage and chi-square was used for analyzing of the data.
Results: 93.2% of the study participants believed that social media and messaging apps can play a role in the awareness and promotion of public health. 81.4% mentioned it can be through Facebook. 41.5% used them for increasing the health awareness and promotion of the public but only 23.8% actively commented on posts related to health in social media and messaging apps. Only 14.8% were satisfied with local posts in social media and messaging apps (Kurdistan) on health subjects. There was a significant association between sex, workplace and filed of education of the participants with their belief in the promotion of public health, actively commenting on social media posts on health subjects, playing the role of social media in improving public health, and actively using social media for health promotion.
Conclusions: Kurdistan healthcare providers believe in using social media and messaging apps for public health awareness and promotion; therefore, they need encouragement to use social media and messaging apps effectively to promote the health of individuals.
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Copyright (c) 2025 Khurshid A. Kheder Khrwatany1, Hamdia Mirkhan
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
