Towards a framework for the adoption of Social Media in Health in Sub-Saharan Africa (original) (raw)

This study aimed to evaluate the extent to which health practitioners in Cross River state, Nigeria, use social media for patient care and to assess the barriers militating against its liberal use for patient care. The study adopted the cross-sectional survey design and used 550 respondents selected through the cluster, simple random and purposive sampling techniques, from selected secondary and tertiary health facilities. Furthermore, quantitative and qualitative methods involving the questionnaire and key informant interview respectively were used to elicit information from respondents. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics while content analysis was used to handle qualitative data. The result of data analysis revealed that health practitioners in Cross River state, Nigeria do social media use for patient care very minimally and this is attributed to a wide range of factors, including the absence of a clear-cut regulatory framework governing social media use...

The study examined health personnel’s perception on the use of social media in healthcare delivery system in rural and urban communities of Oyo state, Nigeria. Randomly, 2 Local Government Area (LGA) each were selected from rural and urban LGA that represents 12% of LGA in the state, these are Ibarapa East, Iseyin, Ibadan North and Ogbomosho North. Purposively, medical centres were sampled based on the concentration of health practitioners in selected health centres. A total of three medical centres each from Ibarapa East and Iseyin, while three medical centres were selected from Ibadan North and Ogbomoso North. In all, 112 health personnel were used from the 124 personnel sampled. A good number of the respondents were below 50 years, data obtained indicated that there were more female medical personnel (66.1%) than male (33.9%). All the respondents had more than one year of working experience with 33.9% of them having less than five years work experience. Majority (58.9%) are awar...

The ubiquity of mobile phones offers an opportunity for a paradigm change in health-care delivery, which may offer solutions to some of the challenges faced by the health sector in Uganda. The Medical Concierge Group (TMCG) is a digital health company, headquartered in Uganda, which leverages on mobile phone-based platforms – such as short messaging service (SMS), voice calling – and social media to deliver health services. Just over two-thirds (68%) of users of TMCG’s services are males between 18 and 30 years of age. SMS reminders have improved the honouring of health facility appointments among HIV-positive clients, from 60% to 90%; retention rates at supported health facilities have improved from 45% to 89%. Furthermore, information dissemination has been achieved via mobile SMS, wherein subscribers can access health content on diverse topics – such as HIV/AIDS prevention and family planning – by sending messages to a pre-defined short code to a phone line. Over 900 beneficiar...

This study focuses on the assessment of different ICT tools used by Nigerian health workers. Structured questionnaires were used to collect information from 106 respondents. The questionnaire consists of 5 sections, namely: demographics, extent of use of ICT, tasks and activities carried out with ICT, the year of adoption of ICT. Descriptive statistics tools were used for data summarization and visualization. The results showed that the ICT devices were more commonly used among females than male medical personnel which were most common among the age group of 26-30 years and were nurses and doctors with less than 5 years' experience. The earliest ICT tool adopted was the PC in 1994 followed by mobile phones and search engines in 1996 and the projector in 2001. A majority of the health workers used ICT for administrative functions followed by research and personal work. ICT majorly impacted ICT by promoting collaboration among physicians, quicker medical diagnoses of diseases, inc...

The advent of technological innovation has ushered in new consultation mode that has virtually eliminated distance between doctors and patients. This becomes more crucial for rural areas where medical personnel and infrastructure are in short supply. The study therefore sought to examine the health workers' attitude towards leveraging social media platforms to extend care to distant patients without physical contact. This was achieved by examining health workers' view on relevance of social media in consultations and prescriptions; and exploring the range of prescriptions deployed through the social media. The design was cross-sectional and involved doctors in general medical practice in Federal Government establishments in the Lagos Mainland Local Government Area of Lagos state. One hundred and two of the respondents who have had at least five years of medical practice were purposively selected. To validate their responses, four pharmacists with at least five years of work experience in private pharmacy stores were interviewed using in-depth interview guide. Descriptive statistical method of analysis was used for quantitative data while content analysis was used for qualitative data. The results showed that close to two-thirds of the respondents utilize social media platform to reach their patients, although a good number of them expressed some ethical concern. Deployment of social media for prescriptions extended across different classes of drugs like analgesics, antibiotics and anti-malarias. A national guideline on the use of social media in consultation and prescription could facilitate the practitioners' willingness to engage more patients that a far from the point of care.