Twitter at the ACR 2015 Meeting in San Francisco

There were four abstracts, posters or talks on Twitter at the ACR 2015 Meeting in San Francisco.

Christopher Collins and colleagues reported about: “#Rheumjc: Development, Implementation and Analysis of an International Twitter-Based Rheumatology Journal Club”. In results we read: “A qualitative content analysis (inter-rater agreement alpha =0.801) revealed that the majority of the conversation was relevant with 28% of the tweets addressing the article directly (in the spirit of a “traditional” journal club) and another 62% considered “on-topic” with tweets referencing personal experiences, opinions, and links to supporting literature.” Conclusion: “#RheumJC is a novel and popular approach to the traditional medical journal club which brings together people from around the globe and across specialties to discuss current medical literature in rheumatology utilizing Twitter as a medium for medical education.” I hope that #Rheumjc will continue and that even more participants will show up.

Ahmed Omar an colleagues looked at: “Twitter and Rheumatology: Significant and Incremental Growth in Usage“.The authors used the Symplur® healthcare analytics website to retrospectively examine traffic related to chosen Rheumatology-associated hashtags as #Rheum, #Lupus, #Fibro, #Arthritis, #Osteoporosis, #Spondylitis (AS), #RheumatoidArthritis, and #Vasculitis; and also #Diabetes, #IBD  (Inflammatory Bowel Disease), and #Psoriasis. The concluded: “Twitter usage in relation to Rheumatology has shown a dramatic growth over the last 5 years and continues to show sustained growth.” In 2014 tweets on rheumatology have hit the 500,000 mark.

To give comparable data on the 500,000 mark I consulted the Symplur® healthcare analytics website myself. Tweets using the ACR meeting’s hashtag #ACR15 amounted to about 6,179 for the peak days (08.-10. Nov. 2015). That’s nearly double of the EULAR Meeting’s hashtag #EULAR2015, where tweets amounted to 3,877 for the peak days (10.-12. June 2015)

Pari Delir Haghighi and colleagues reperted an "Investigation of Environmental Associations of Fibromyalgia Pain Using Twitter Content Analysis”. In methods they write: “We performed an automated search of Twitter between January 2008 and November 2014 using the hashtags #fibromyalgia, #fibro and #spoonie as keywords.” I’ll discuss this study together with other studies on fibromyalgia. No one would have thought a couple of years ago that tweets can be used scientifically.

Jonathan S. Hausmann and colleagues looked at: “Use of Social Media By Rheumatology Fellows in North America“. On Twitter we read in onclusion: “Twitter, for either personal or professional use, was reported by 18% of fellows, significantly less than surveys of adults with a college education, where the rates of use are 30%.”

Take home messages:

    - we can use Twitter to discuss new developments in medicine on a global level

    - Twitter may yield data for scientific research

    - Twitter has shown an incremental growth in rheumatology related hashtags

References:

Collins C, Sufka P, Hausmann JS, Jayatilleke A, Campos J, Bhana S. #Rheumjc: Development, Implementation and Analysis of an International Twitter-Based Rheumatology Journal Club [abstract]. Arthritis Rheumatol. 2015; 67 (suppl 10). http://acrabstracts.org/abstract/rheumjc-development-implementation-and-analysis-of-an-international-twitter-based-rheumatology-journal-club/. Accessed November 12, 2015.

Omar A, Sari I, Chan J, Haroon N, Inman RD. Twitter and Rheumatology: Significant and Incremental Growth in Usage [abstract]. Arthritis Rheumatol. 2015; 67 (suppl 10). http://acrabstracts.org/abstract/twitter-and-rheumatology-significant-and-incremental-growth-in-usage/. Accessed November 12, 2015.

Delir Haghighi P, Kang YB, Huynh T, Buchbinder R, Burstein F, Whittle S. Investigation of Environmental Associations of Fibromyalgia Pain Using Twitter Content Analysis [abstract]. Arthritis Rheumatol. 2015; 67 (suppl 10). http://acrabstracts.org/abstract/investigation-of-environmental-associations-of-fibromyalgia-pain-using-twitter-content-analysis/. Accessed November 12, 2015.

Hausmann JS, Doss J, Cappelli L. Use of Social Media By Rheumatology Fellows in North America [abstract]. Arthritis Rheumatol. 2015; 67 (suppl 10). http://acrabstracts.org/abstract/use-of-social-media-by-rheumatology-fellows-in-north-america/. Accessed November 12, 2015.