Introduction
Social media has become a necessary component of daily existence and its utilization is progressively interwoven with the medical field. Instagram has a no cost image and video sharing virtual entertainment application that has been widely used in a multitude of fields, medicine being no exception. 1 Legislative and non-legislative foundations progressively utilize virtual entertainment as an essential device for public awareness. Worldwide spread, expeditiousness, and dialogic possibilities make these stages ideal for general well-being for crisis correspondence in emergencies such as the COVID-19 pandemic.2, 3
Annually, cardiovascular diseases are known to be the leading cause of death worldwide with an estimation of 17.9 million lives.4 Cardiovascular diseases are common in the age group of 40-59 years, who coincidentally, are becoming increasingly active users of social media platforms to share information amongst their peers.
It is a common predilection of the freedom of speech enabling everyone to share their knowledge with people all over the world, but not everyone questions its authenticity.5 This could easily lead to misinformation being spread regarding basic and crucial processes like CPR or first aid, which can help save lives outside of the hospital setting. Often, celebrities use medical hashtags to go viral, which can interfere with the algorithm and fail to display the information one might be looking for.6
This study has been undertaken for the purpose of shedding light on recent trends since a large population in India has started using Instagram as a primary modality to search about their health conditions, especially after the Covid-19 pandemic. Similarly, the general population also utilizes Instagram to search for other information related to our topic and then we decided to analyze the accuracy of information being circulated.
Aims and Objectives
To assess whether the information circulating on Instagram is pertinent and trustworthy, relevant, and find out the reach of the posts, through likes and other variables.
Materials and Methods
We conducted a web-based study over a period of 5 days from the 20th of August, 2022 until the 25th, verifying the accuracy of health information regarding cardiac arrest found on Instagram. We used the World Health Organization (WHO) site as a reference for accurate information. We searched for Hashtags related to cardiac arrest on Instagram and chose top 6 hashtags and analyzed them. The top 6 hashtags chosen are cardiacarrest, cardiacarrestswareness, heartattack, heartattackprevention, heartattacksymptoms, and heartattacktreatment. We made a proforma of the criteria to be analyzed including duration, likes, comments, details of the entity who posted (for example, if the post was made by a health professional, health & wellness industry/ website, news agency, dietician, survivor or a patient) and the posts were analyzed.
We set predetermined conditions to analyze the information on the post, including the following variables: Language choice of the post, whether it was a video or a post, if it included description of a cardiac arrest (cause, prevalence, signs, symptoms, prevention, treatment and mortality) and also if the post was considered to be interesting or hilarious, comparing it to the information being true or false. The authors analyzed in total 100 Instagram posts. Data was analyzed using Microsoft Excel.
Results
The study identified 457 relevant posts in total, of which 386 (84.46%) were in the form of posts and 71 (15.53%) comprised video content.
The analysis criteria that has been described above included the language used, the number of likes and comments the post has received over time, the information available in the form of prevalence, etiology, prevention and treatment regarding cardiac arrest, whether the post was humorous, and whether the information is true or false.
Isplays the following hashtags that were identified as being highly relevant out of 457 posts: Cardiacarrest, Cardiacarrestswareness, Heartattack, Heartattackprevention, Heartattacksymptoms, Heartattack treatment.
provides illustrations of posts made by doctors, Health wellness industry/ website, News agencies, Dietitians, Survivor/ Person suffering from the disease and others to determine whether health professionals accounted for the majority of posts.
Discussion
The investigation found a total of 457 pertinent posts, of which 71 (15.53%) contained video material and 386 (84.46%) were mere posts. A total of six cardiovascular hashtags were used. Our study shows how Instagram may be used to better understand and how information about cardiac arrest and other cardiovascular health issues are spread and debated.
Firstly, previous studies have demonstrated that the health-related traffic on Instagram is composed of both individuals and organizations.4 In our study we have also discovered that 190 (41.47%) posts from a website in the health and wellness sector were the most pertinent, followed by doctors 91 (19.91%) and dietitians 61(13.34%). This shows that many health-related organizations are more proactive in delivering information related to cardiovascular diseases.
Furthermore, future research should examine languages other than English to give a more thorough and inclusive examination of Instagram content because the study found that WHO and IRFC have international audiences whose native tongue may not be English.6 For instance, Instagram accounts in different languages like Arabic (e.g., Ministry of Health, Sultanate of Oman) and Spanish (e.g., Secretary de Salud, Mexico) may be able to give a more localized summary of the various health messaging modalities.7 Our research also showed that the majority of the posts i.e. 446(97.59%) were made in only two languages—English and Hindi and 11 posts(2.40%) were made in other languages as well.8
Interestingly, the previous research conducted in this sphere also found that the high-volume users had a sizable number of followers and received a lot of ‘likes’.9 This finding supports the notion that healthcare professionals play a significant role in the online health debate.4 Our study revealed that 230 posts (50.32%) had less than 50 likes on the Instagram, 61 posts (13.34%) had likes between 50-100, 76 posts (16.65%) had likes between 100-500 and lastly 90 posts (19.63%) had likes more than 500 as well. The social media users also left comments beneath each post. Our study revealed that the majority of the posts, 418 which accounts for 91.46% of the total relevant posts, had less than fifty comments whereas 21(4.59%) and 17(3.71%) had comments between fifty to hundred and hundred to five hundred respectively.10
The fourth conclusion we derived from our study being 61.17% and 81.61% of the posts were useful and offered information regarding heart attack prevention and treatment. This can be compared to the recent research of patients hospitalized with an acute coronary syndrome in a specific location found that the majority of patients were familiar with the warning signs, resulting in lesser delays in seeking medical assistance.11
In finality, it is reasonable to assume that not every involvement is positive, and that there may be times when an offensive social media post receives a lot of attention.12 Our researchers have also found that 332 postings (72.76%) were true and only 1 post (0.21%) presented misleading information.13
Paradoxically, 124 posts (27.12%) could not be verified of their authenticity by the co-authors. Misinformation about cardiac arrest has proven as unpleasant as the event itself. 418 (91.46%) posts showed that there were no memes or cartoons, but 39(8.53%) posts did. Our analysis revealed that 204 (44.63%) of the total relevant posts featured descriptions of cardiac arrest, while the remaining 253 (55.36%) did not. The bulk of the postings, 380 in total, lacked information regarding the prevalence of cardiac arrest, and also 306 posts had no information about the etiology of cardiac arrest. It was discovered that 61.17% and 81.61% of the posts were useful and offered information regarding heart attack prevention and treatment, respectively.11 Out of 457 relevant entries, 400 did not have any information about the mortality connected to cardiac arrest.
Thus, there is immense potential for health organizations to increase their involvement in combating misinformation on Instagram and other social media platforms by offering accurate information, guiding users to reliable sources, and serving as a fact-check for erroneous material.14, 15
Article DOI
