The effect of Covid-19 in digital media use of Finnish physicians (Preprint)
BACKGROUND Covid-19 pandemic has boosted digitalization in healthcare, as mobility restrictions and social distancing rules have made healthcare providers to adopt digital tools to replace or complement face-to-face interactions. OBJECTIVE In this paper, we discuss results of a survey study about the effects of Covid-19 pandemic on physician’s use of digital media. We examine whether Covid-19 conditions have changed how physicians use internet resources for information search, how they engage in social media, and how they participate in online events. METHODS The study compares a survey conducted in Finland in spring 2020 with two identical surveys done in 2019 and 2018. Spring 2020 was the time when Finland executed mobility restrictions and re-organization of healthcare because of pandemic. Comparing results of this survey with the results of two previous years gives us a unique opportunity to do comparative analysis if the results of Covid-19 spring are different from earlier years. RESULTS Our results show that the use of digital media for information search did increase, but not more than the steadily rising trend of previous years. Use of print media was still strong, and complementary digital media sources had already been relatively high prior 2020 and continued to stay in that level. Use of social media had also been steadily rising among physicians, and this steady rise continued in 2020. However, our results indicate that Covid-19 situation had an effect on physician’s participation in online events organized by healthcare ecosystem stakeholders. There was a rise in numbers in participation to online congresses, symposia and training, and physicians took part in more eDetailing organized by healthcare ecosystem actors. CONCLUSIONS As use of digital media including social media was already high prior Covid-19 in Finland, our results do not show significant change because of special circumstances in 2020. However, our results show increased participation in online events. With increased participation, also the attitudes towards organized online events had changed more positive, which could indicate that the higher participation numbers could continue also when pandemic related restrictions will be removed.