Abstract :

Objective: Nowadays, social media offers opportunities in health communication and health promotion. Social media is also used by health institutions to improve the health of the people. One of the institutions that use social media is Republic of Turkey, Ministry of Health. This study was intended to examine the contents of the tweets that the Ministry of Health sent on Twitter in 2017. MATERIAL AND METHODS: In this descriptive study, original tweets which shared from the Republic of Turkey Ministry of Health official Twitter account @SaglikBakanligi between January 2017 and January 2018 were examined. Tweets were divided into groups according to their contents. Retweet, likes and comments were recorded. Number of comments, retweets, and likes were given as mean, median, standard deviation, maximum and minimum. Tweet topics were presented in percent and frequency. Results: Five hundred and seventy one original tweets were sent in 2017. A total of 393 (%68.33) tweets were sent in relation to health issues while 178 (%31.17) tweets about non-health issues were sent. The most common tweets with health topics were health nutrition and nutritional recommendations, the importance of physical activity and benefits. The Ministry of Health gives health messages through various social media platforms (Twiter, Instagram Facebook, Yotube) and benefits from social media. It provides an important service for health communication by informing health issues as the right information source. However, it would be appropriate to carry out further research into how effective these health information are in improving health.

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Abstract :

OBJECTIVE: Nowadays, social media offers opportunities in health communication and health promotion. Social media is also used by health institutions to improve the health of the people. One of the institutions that use social media is Republic of Turkey, Ministry of Health. This study was intended to examine the contents of the tweets that the Ministry of Health sent on Twitter in 2017. MATERIAL AND METHODS: In this descriptive study, original tweets which shared from Republic of Turkey Ministry of Health official Twiter account @SaglikBakanligi between January 2017 and January 2018 were examined. Tweets were divided into groups according to their contents. Retweet, likes and comments were recorded. Number of comments, retweets, and likes were given as mean, median, standard deviation, maximum and minimum. Tweet topics were presented in percent and frequency. RESULTS: Five hundred and seventy one original tweets were sent in 2017. A total of 393 (%68.33) tweets were sent in relation to health issues while 178 (%31.17) tweets about non-health issues were sent. The most common tweets with health topics were health nutrition and nutritional recommendations, the importance of physical activity and benefits. CONCLUSIONS: The Ministry of Health gives health messages through various social media platforms (Twiter, Instagram Facebook, Yotube) and benefits from social media. It provides an important service for health communication by informing health issues as the right information source. However, it would be appropriate to carry out further research into how effective these health information are in improving health.

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