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Citation
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De Gagne JC, Hall K, Conklin JL, Yamane SS, Wyman Roth N, Chang J, Kim SS. Int. J. Nurs. Stud. 2018; 89: 24-31. |
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Abstract
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BACKGROUND: Although misuse of social networking sites, particularly Twitter, has occurred, little is known about the prevalence, content, and characteristics of uncivil tweets posted by nurses and nursing students.
OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to describe the characteristics of tweets posted by nurses and nursing students on Twitter with a focus on cyberincivility.
METHOD: A cross-sectional, data-mining study was held from February through April 2017. Using a data-mining tool, we extracted quantitative and qualitative data from a sample of 163 self-identified nurses and nursing students on Twitter. The analysis of 8934 tweets was performed by a combination of SAS 9.4 for descriptive and inferential statistics including logistic regression and NVivo 11 to derive descriptive patterns of unstructured textual data.
FINDINGS: We categorized 413 tweets (4.62%, n = 8934) as uncivil. Of these, 240 (58%) were related to nursing and the other 173 (42%) to personal life. Of the 163 unique users, 60 (36.8%) generated those 413 uncivil posts, tweeting inappropriately at least once over a period of six weeks. Most uncivil tweets contained profanity (n = 135, 32.7%), sexually explicit or suggestive material (n = 37, 9.0%), name-calling (n = 14, 3.4%), and discriminatory remarks against minorities (n = 9, 2.2%). Other uncivil content included product promotion, demeaning comments toward patients, aggression toward health professionals, and HIPAA violations.
CONCLUSION: Nurses and nursing students share uncivil tweets that could tarnish the image of the profession and violate codes of ethics. Individual, interpersonal, and institutional efforts should be made to foster a culture of cybercivility.
Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Language: en |