Social Media as a Tool for Professional Development, Advancement and Presentation of Pharmacist Expanded Roles
School of Pharmacy, Shenyang Pharmaceutical University
How they used Delve
Pharmacy researchers at Shenyang Pharmaceutical University used Delve to code 450 World Pharmacist Day social media posts and to run the inter-rater reliability check between two reviewers, categorising how pharmacists portray their patient-care versus drug-distribution roles.
“This study utilized a qualitative research design to analyze the content shared on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram related to pharmacist expanded roles. [...] the reliability of pharmacists' expanded role photos, images, and tweets was determined by using an inter-rater reliability test through Delve Qualitative Analysis Tool [17].”
- Field
- Pharmacy practice and health communication; how pharmacists' expanded roles were portrayed in World Pharmacist Day posts across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, 2020-2022
- Data
- 450 posts and tweets from Facebook, Instagram and Twitter carrying World Pharmacist Day hashtags and posted on 25 September in 2020, 2021 and 2022, each including a photo or image; after exclusions 182 photos, images and tweets went into the final analysis
- Approach
- Qualitative content analysis of social media posts, with thematic analysis used to interpret patterns of meaning in the photos and images. Posts were catalogued in numerical capture order and sorted into six categories (patient care roles, drug distribution roles, multiple roles, no described roles, not professional roles, not relevant). Two reviewers with pharmacy practice expertise handled disagreements, and the research team discussed the coding process and theme grouping with senior members throughout. Inter-rater reliability was run through Delve; the reported figure is a Cohen's kappa of 0.7165 (substantial agreement), with 90% average percentage agreement and 76% complete agreement, and the statistics were computed in SAS.
- Data types
- Social media
Abstract
Background: Social media are a useful tool to communicate health and science related issues and nowadays they are widely used by patient’s organizations to promote their work. Objective: The objective of this study was to identify how pharmacists’ roles were presented in the posts and tweets on social media for World Pharmacist Day (WPD) 2020-22. Method: A qualitative content analysis was used to evaluate the posts and tweets of pharmacists’ roles on WPD 2020-22. Social media (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter) posts and tweets were selected as the source. Posts were included that had a photo or image, used WPD hashtags (#WPD), and were posted on September 25, 2020-22. Thematic analysis was performed to identify, analyze, and interpret patterns of meanings of the photos and images. Photos and images were categorized into 6 groups: 1) patient care roles, 2) drug distribution roles, 3) multiple roles, 4) no described roles, 5) not professional roles, and 6) not relevant. Results: A total of 450 posts and tweets were analyzed. Forty percent described the drug distribution roles of pharmacists, whereas 35% represented patient care roles, 5% portrayed the multiple roles of the pharmacists and 20% did not describe any particular roles of pharmacists. Conclusion: There are many positive ways to use social media in healthcare, including promoting awareness and sharing accurate health messaging.
Citation
Muhammad Ahmer Raza, Shireen Aziz, Adili Tuersun, Misbah Noreen, Muhammad Zain Iqbal, Danyal Iftikhar (2023). Social Media as a Tool for Professional Development, Advancement and Presentation of Pharmacist Expanded Roles. International Journal of Pharmacy and Chemistry. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijpc.20230902.11