Tirelessly Striving Towards the Challenging Goal of Patient Safety: A Content Analysis of Patient Advocacy Dialogs on Facebook.

Abstract

Objectives: Patient experiences are focal points in the discourse around medical errors and patient safety, with social media offering new avenues to explore them. This study aimed to understand patient and family perspectives through a mixed-method analysis of posts made to a public Facebook group focused on patient safety.

Methods: A total of 200 posts posted between November 21, 2022 and June 23, 2023 were manually extracted and double-coded by 2 independent human coders using a systematically developed codebook. Frequencies were calculated and χ 2 tests were performed to analyze associations between codes. A grounded theory approach was used to qualitatively analyze key themes in the posts.

Results: Of the 141 posts deemed relevant to patient safety, the majority (85%) included links to external news sources or information, rather than direct accounts of personal experiences. The most frequently discussed error types were surgical errors (28%) and infections (17%). The most frequent content codes were policy and regulatory issues (35%) and patient empowerment and advocacy (33%). Posts containing links had significantly more discussions about empowerment and advocacy, infections in vulnerable populations, and policy and advocacy compared with those without links. Overarching qualitative themes included the personal impact of medical errors, systemic challenges, the importance of empowerment through education, and the role of community support.

Conclusions: This study underscores the importance of online communities in influencing patient safety discourse. Findings support the utility of using social media data for patient safety research and provide unique insights into patient concerns and advocacy efforts.