Abstract | March 11, 2024

Patient and Caregiver Perception of Adenoidectomies: a non-Real World Social Media Analysis

Nikhil B. Godbole, BS, MS3, Tulane University School of Medicine, New Orleans, LA

Ethan D. Paliwoda, MBA, MS1, Albany Medical College, Albany, NY; Avi A. Gajjar, BS, MS1, Albany Medical College, Albany, NY; Nithin Gupta, BS, MS3, Campbell University School of Osteopathic Medicine, Lillington, NC; Alexander Nguyen, BS, MS1, Creighton University School of Medicine, Phoenix, AZ; Andrew Nguyen, BS, MS1, University of Florida College of Medicine, Gainesville, FL; Richard Alexander, MD, PhD, MBA, Granville ENT, Oxford, NC

Learning Objectives

  1. Identify important trends in patient and caregiver concerns
  2. Understand the patient provider relationship in greater detail
  3. Describe factors which may foster an improved physician-patient relationship

Introduction: Social media analysis allows healthcare providers to gain a holistic understanding of the patient experience as well as more direct insight into the positive and negative attitudes regarding a procedure.

Objective: To survey the social media outlets Twitter and Instagram for public posts related to adenoidectomy surgery. This study aims to investigate the attitudes and perceptions of patients and caregivers on social media, through thematic content-analysis of social media posts regarding adenoidectomy.

Methods: This was a non-real world qualitative study of Twitter and Instagram social media platforms.

Public posts uploaded between February, 2021-February, 2023 using the hashtags “#adenoidectomy”, and “#adenoidectomyrecovery” were searched. Posts were excluded if they were unrelated to adenoidectomy or were in a non-English language. Relevant posts were stratified demographically as patient or caregiver and pre- or post-operative and categorized into relevant themes for analysis. Outcomes were measured as the total number of posts.

Results: 394 relevant posts were analyzed. A significance threshold of p < 0.05 was used. Patients (31.1%) posted significantly more posts regarding procedure pain (p = 0.002) and concern for appearance (p = 0.048) compared to caregivers (14.4%). Caregivers (19%) posted significantly (p < 0.001) more posts regarding condition awareness and were significantly (p < 0.001) more likely to spread positivity in their posts compared to patients themselves (11.1%). Posts made by female caregivers were more likely to reference fear, while those made by male caregivers were more likely to provide education (p = 0.002).

Conclusions: Patients may worry about appearance and mental health while caregivers are more likely to spread information and positivity. Male and female caregivers may also use social media differently. A better understanding of patient and caregiver concerns may optimize physician interaction and involvement.

References and Resources

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