User engagement analysis of visual vs text-based summaries of new medical research in the general medical community (Preprint)

BACKGROUND In the digital age of publication and era of social media, there is increased need for precise and concise reporting of medical manuscripts to educate students, physicians, and other health professionals. Both visual abstracts (VAs) and textual reports (TRs) have been utilized online, but there is a paucity of study about whether VAs really boost user engagement through visual representation of key study findings. Furthermore, prior studies have focused on specialty journals content as opposed to the general medical community. OBJECTIVE The current study was designed to analyze the effectiveness of standardized VAs across the general medical community. METHODS In this prospective case-control study, we used Twitter to publish 18 pairs of VAs and TRs from an open-access, physician-run medical news organization with healthcare professional readership across all medical specialties in order to investigate the effect of VAs on user engagement. Each VA/TR pair, which generally covered new research applicable to the general internist, was published on the same day, covered the same content, and had the same title on Twitter; posts for TRs had a nonspecific control image and link to a text abstract, while VA posts had a partial preview and link to the full VA. The outcomes studied were views, engagement rate, and percent change in engagement rate. RESULTS Results showed that while there was no difference in number of views on Twitter (P=.83), VAs had significantly higher engagement rates (P=.002), with an average fold change of 2.75 (95% CI 1.83 to 3.67). CONCLUSIONS Our results show that Twitter posts containing previews and links to VAs had more user engagement than posts with no visual content and links to TRs, which suggests that VAs are more effective tools for promoting engagement with medical content.

Download Full-text

LIFEStyle, Prevention and Risk of Acute PaNcreatitis (LIFESPAN): protocol of a multicentre and multinational observational case–control study

BMJ Open ◽

10.1136/bmjopen-2019-029660 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 10 (1) ◽

pp. e029660 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Balázs Koncz ◽

Erika Darvasi ◽

Dalma Erdősi ◽

Andrea Szentesi ◽

Katalin Márta ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Acute Pancreatitis ◽

Case Control Study ◽

Dietary Habits ◽

Case Control ◽

Medical Community ◽

Control Group ◽

Case Group ◽

Control Groups ◽

Link Type ◽

Control Study

IntroductionAcute pancreatitis (AP) is a life-threatening inflammatory disease of the exocrine pancreas which needs acute hospitalisation. Despite its importance, we have significant lack of knowledge whether the lifestyle factors elevate or decrease the risk of AP or influence the disease outcome. So far, no synthetising study has been carried out examining associations between socioeconomic factors, dietary habits, physical activity, chronic stress, sleep quality and AP. Accordingly, LIFESPAN identifies risk factors of acute pancreatitis and helps to prepare preventive recommendations for lifestyle elements.Methods and analysisLIFESPAN is an observational, multicentre international case–control study. Participating subjects will create case and control groups. The study protocol was designed according to the SPIRIT guideline. Patients in the case group (n=1700) have suffered from AP (alcohol-induced, n=500; biliary, n=500; hypertriglyceridemiainduced, n=200; other, n=500); the control group subjects have no AP in their medical history. Our study will have three major control groups (n=2200): hospital-based (n=500), population-based (n=500) and aetiology-based (alcohol, n=500; biliary, n=500 and hypertriglyceridemia, n=200). All of them will be matched to the case group individually by gender, age and location of residence. Aggregately, 3900 subjects will be enrolled into the study. The study participants will complete a complex questionnaire with the help of a clinical research administrator/study nurse. Analysis methods include analysis of the continuous and categorical values.Ethics and disseminationThe study has obtained the relevant ethical approval (54175-2/2018/EKU) and also internationally registered (ISRCTN25940508). After obtaining the final conclusions, we will publish the data to the medical community and will also disseminate our results via open access.Trial registration numberISRCTN25940508; Pre-results.

Download Full-text