Preliminary study on health information sharing on Facebook

Aim: This study aims at discovering the current status and the barriers and enablers of health information sharing on a social media,Facebook, among college students.

Methods: Students who used Facebook for more than one year were recruited at a Midwestern university via mass email. Participants were chosen based on major and gender variation as well. Three focus group meetings with five participants in each group were conducted between April 30th and May 1st in 2009. The example question for focus groups is “What makes the Facebook a good place to share health information?” The focus groups meetings were recorded and then analyzed by the moderator.

Results: Common health issues, like cold, were shared as “status” update. Reading health related articles through a link and connecting to health providers like chiropractor on Facebook were mentioned as other ways of sharing health information. Enablers of sharing health information included Facebook's fast and wide reach and frequent use among students, fun, local-connection, application functions (e.g. search engine). Barriers included privacy and stigma concern, worries of misinformation, and rebellion to the forcing information.

Discussions: Facebook has potential for being used as a channel for reaching out to college students with health information. However, it seems not to be an effective channel for one-way distribution of persuasive messages. Instead, it can be used more effectively as a channel for word of mouth of personalized health information and social support. It could also provide easy access to general health information search application.