Journal of Education and Health Promotion

Opportunities and challenges of social media for health knowledge management: A narrative review

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

. Hossein Ghalavand 1
. Sirous Panahi 2
. Shahram Sedghi 2

1 Department of Medical Library and Information Science, School of Health Management and Information Sciences, Iran University of Medical Sciences Department of Medical Library and Information Science, Abadan Faculty of Medical Sciences, Abadan

2 Department of Medical Library and Information Science, School of Health Management and Information Sciences, Iran University of Medical Sciences Department of Medical Library and Information Science, Health Management and Economics Research Center, School of Health Management and Information Sciences, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Social media is becoming a new tool for developing health knowledge management.
However, despite the rapid growth of research in this area, few attempts have been made to review
previous research. This study tried to summarize the opportunities and challenges of using social
media to managing health knowledge.
METHODOLOGY: This article used a narrative approach to collect and review studies. In this
review, published documents during 2010–2019 were retrieved by search in the following three
electronic scientific databases: Web of Knowledge, PubMed, and Google Scholar search engine
using keywords including social media, public health, health knowledge, knowledge management,
and health promotion.
RESULTS: Social media by overcoming geographical barriers, developing health promotion,
facilitating decision‑making, and providing public health education has been able to enhancing health
awareness and improving health behavior. Doctors’ unwillingness to interact with the public, lack of
compliance with the principles of medical ethics, users’ privacy concerns, and difficulty of managing
negative comments are the four challenges to health knowledge management in social media.
CONCLUSION: Social media can be a suitable tool for developing health knowledge management
processes if medical professional ethics and users’ privacy managed properly.

Keywords

Health communication
health knowledge
health promotion
knowledge management
public health
social media
technology
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Journal of Education and Health Promotion
Volume 10, Issue 6
June 2020
Pages 1-5

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