A New Dimension of Health Care: Systematic Review of the Uses,Benefits, and Limitations of Social Media for HealthCommunication

Background: There is currently a lack of information about the uses, benefits, and limitations of social media for healthcommunication among the general public, patients, and health professionals from primary research.Objective: To review the current published literature to identify the uses, benefits, and limitations of social media for healthcommunication among the general public, patients, and health professionals, and identify current gaps in the literature to providerecommendations for future health communication research.Methods: This paper is a review using a systematic approach. A systematic search of the literature was conducted using nineelectronic databases and manual searches to locate peer-reviewed studies published between January 2002 and February 2012.Results: The search identified 98 original research studies that included the uses, benefits, and/or limitations of social mediafor health communication among the general public, patients, and health professionals. The methodological quality of the studiesassessed using the Downs and Black instrument was low; this was mainly due to the fact that the vast majority of the studies inthis review included limited methodologies and was mainly exploratory and descriptive in nature. Seven main uses of socialmedia for health communication were identified, including focusing on increasing interactions with others, and facilitating,sharing, and obtaining health messages. The six key overarching benefits were identified as (1) increased interactions with others,(2) more available, shared, and tailored information, (3) increased accessibility and widening access to health information, (4)peer/social/emotional support, (5) public health surveillance, and (6) potential to influence health policy. Twelve limitations wereidentified, primarily consisting of quality concerns and lack of reliability, confidentiality, and privacy.Conclusions: Social media brings a new dimension to health care as it offers a medium to be used by the public, patients, andhealth professionals to communicate about health issues with the possibility of potentially improving health outcomes. Socialmedia is a powerful tool, which offers collaboration between users and is a social interaction mechanism for a range of individuals.Although there are several benefits to the use of social media for health communication, the information exchanged needs to bemonitored for quality and reliability, and the users’ confidentiality and privacy need to be maintained. Eight gaps in the literatureand key recommendations for future health communication research were provided. Examples of these recommendations includethe need to determine the relative effectiveness of different types of social media for health communication using randomizedcontrol trials and to explore potential mechanisms for monitoring and enhancing the quality and reliability of health communicationusing social media. Further robust and comprehensive evaluation and review, using a range of methodologies, are required toestablish whether social media improves health communication practice both in the short and long terms.