Reach and Power of Physician-Initiated Tweets in a Twitter Inflammatory Bowel Disease Community

Background: Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) specialist Twitter engagement and thematic content was assessed. Methods: The nature of interaction between IBD specialists and users who responded to them was analyzed based on (1) content analysis of stakeholders who responded to them; (2) nature of interaction through a manual thematic content analysis of IBD specialist tweets and responses; (3) prominence of interaction by employing descriptive analysis and statistical inferences relative to the number of replies, likes, and retweets. Analyzed samples included of tweets (n = 320) compiled from 16 IBD specialists, and associated replies (n = 299), retweets (n = 869), and likes (n = 4068). Results: Healthcare professionals (HCPs) more often engaged with peer-HCPs, compared to other stakeholders. When it comes to the nature of exchanges, of original tweets, the most common content was for knowledge sharing (58%) and endorsement (28%). In the knowledge sharing category, research accounted for more than half of those tweets (53%). Of replies, knowledge sharing occurred most frequently with a subtheme of IBD management (62%). Conclusions: HCP-HCP Twitter engagement was more frequent than HCP-other Twitter stakeholder interaction. The primary purpose for this engagement was found to obtain real-time information, professionally network, and disseminate research.