Social Media as a Platform for Information About Diabetes Foot Care: A Study of Facebook Groups

Background: Diabetes is one of the most challenging chronic health conditions in the current era. Diabetes-related foot problems need proper patient education, and social media could a play role to disseminate proper information. Method: A systematic search was performed on Facebook groups using the key words "diabetes foot care","diabetes foot","diabetes foot management" and"podiatric care". The search resulted in 57 groups and detailed activity information was collected from those groups. Usefulness of each relevant post was determined. Regression analysis was performed to explore the factors associated with the level of usefulness of diabetes foot care-related Facebook groups. Results: Our search resulted in a total of 16 eligible diabetes foot care-related Facebook groups with a total of 103 eligible posts. The average number of group members for the selected groups were 265.75 with an interquartile range of 3.5-107.75. Of the total 103 timeline posts, 45.6% posts were categorized as useful, while the remaining posts were not useful. Top mentioned diabetes foot care practice was "Checking feet daily". Multivariable logistic regression analysis showed that the level of usefulness of diabetes foot care-related Facebook groups were significantly associated with the type of posts and no association was found with presence of" likes" and presence of comment. Conclusion: Facebook being a widely used social networking system, patient welfare organizations, doctors, nurses and podiatrists could use this platform to provide support to educating diabetes patients and their caregivers by disseminating useful and authentic knowledge and information related to diabetes foot care. (C) 2016 Canadian Diabetes Association.