Background

The use of social media is widespread globally. It provides a quicker and faster means of efficient exchange of communications. The use of Twitter Applications to seek mental health advice is becoming popular.

Objectives

This study aims to identify the determinants associated with Twitter use in psychiatric consultations and to assess the level of satisfaction in using the microblogging platform. In addition, the level of e-health literacy is also assessed among users.

Methods

The target population included Twitter users seeking psychiatric consultation. A leading psychiatrist's twitter account with 4.5 million followers was selected and consent obtained. A validated Patient Satisfaction Questionnaire was adopted to assess the level of satisfaction in Twitter use and e-health literacy. The questionnaire was tagged to the chosen Twitter account and reminders were sent until the sample size was reached. Data was analysed using SPSS version 22.0. The analysis included descriptive statistics tabulation, multi-response analysis, and cross-tabulation for satisfaction variables and the chi-square test was used to measure association between different variables.

Results

The study obtained 155 completed response sheets, of which 52 were Twitter users seeking psychiatric advice while the rest sought general health advice. Most of the study participants were females (71.6 %). Women, single status and income range between 4000–9000 Saudi riyal were found to be significantly associated with Twitter use for psychiatric consultation. Generally, most of the participants were satisfied with Twitter in seeking psychiatric consultation that reduced financial disbursement. Furthermore, concerns were expressed regarding the waiting period, word limitations and issues of privacy. The e-health literacy was higher among the participants.

Conclusion

Psychiatric consultations via Twitter is more popular among women. By addressing privacy issues and reducing response time, Twitter may be used as a major platform to deliver mental health services to the population.

中文翻译：

---

Twitter是用于精神病咨询的有前途的微博应用程序-了解使用，满意度和电子卫生知识的预测因素。

背景

社交媒体在全球范围内得到广泛使用。它提供了越来越快的有效通信交换方式。使用Twitter应用程序寻求心理健康建议正变得越来越普遍。

目标

这项研究旨在确定与在精神科咨询中使用Twitter相关的决定因素，并评估使用微博平台的满意度。此外，还评估了用户的电子卫生素养水平。

方法

目标人群包括寻求心理咨询的Twitter用户。选择了一个领先的精神科医生的推特帐户，该帐户具有450万关注者，并获得了同意。通过了有效的患者满意度调查表，以评估Twitter使用和电子卫生知识的满意度。问卷被标记到所选的Twitter帐户，并发送提醒，直到达到样本量。使用SPSS 22.0版分析数据。该分析包括描述性统计表，多响应分析和满意度变量的交叉表，卡方检验用于衡量不同变量之间的关联。

结果

该研究获得了155张完整的响应表，其中52位是Twitter用户，他们寻求精神病学建议，其余的则寻求一般健康建议。大多数研究参与者为女性（71.6％）。发现妇女，单身身份和4000-9000沙特里亚尔之间的收入与推特进行精神科咨询有显着联系。通常，大多数参与者对Twitter寻求精神科咨询以减少财务支出感到满意。此外，有人对轮候时间，字数限制和隐私问题表示关注。参与者的电子卫生素养较高。

结论

通过推特进行的精神科咨询在女性中更为流行。通过解决隐私问题并减少响应时间，Twitter可以用作向民众提供心理健康服务的主要平台。