How Portuguese Health Entities Used Social Media to Face the Public Health Emergency during COVID-19 Disease
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Materials and Methods
2.1. Study Design and Data Source
2.2. Data Collection
2.3. Thematic Analysis
3. Results
3.1. Health Entities and Social Media Accounts
3.2. Thematic Analysis
3.2.1. National Health Service
3.2.2. Directorate-General of Health
3.2.3. Regional Health Administrations
ARS-Alentejo
ARS-Algarve
ARS-Lisbon and Tagus Valley
3.2.4. Regional Directorate for Health
DRS-Azores
DRS-Madeira
4. Discussion
5. Conclusions
Supplementary Materials
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Post types | Image | X | X | X |
Video | X | X | X | |
Publishing link | X | - | X | |
Text | X | - | X | |
Reactions | Likes | X | X | X |
Comments | X | X | X | |
Shares | X | - | X |
Major Themes | Description | Coding Concepts | Quotes |
---|---|---|---|
Community | Incentives for the public to protect others by adopting preventative actions to help reduce the spread of COVID-19. | Staying home, social distancing, hand hygiene, respiratory etiquette, and aeration of spaces. | “when you cough or sneeze, you release droplets, secretions, or aerosols that can be inhaled by other people or deposited on objects and surfaces around you” |
Protecting Yourself | Incentives for actions to protect oneself from contracting COVID-19. | Wearing a face mask, physical distancing, hand washing and disinfection, no object or food sharing, and avoiding touching surfaces. | “some simple gestures make a difference in protecting against COVID-19, it is very important to disinfect your phone” |
Community and Protecting Yourself | Incentives for the public to protect others by adopting preventative actions to help reduce the spread of COVID-19 and also actions to protect oneself from contracting COVID-19. | Protecting yourself and those around you, being a public health agent, preventing the spread of the virus, protecting yourself and others, and reducing the risk of disease exposure and transmission. | “the thought must be: when I comply with the recommended measures, I am protecting not only myself but also the people who live with me, my family, my friends”. |
Understanding | Statements of a level of understanding about COVID-19 disease and the best practices to follow to keep safe. | Understanding, meet, know that, know more, remember, recommendations, and instructions. | “coronaviruses are a family of viruses known to cause illness in humans and the infection can be similar to the common flu or present as a more serious illness such as pneumonia” |
Encouragement to Take Action | Public motivation to take action to stay safe from COVID-19. | Appeals and indications of public figures and institutions to follow the example of, awareness campaigns to stop the pandemic, and videos that teach preventative measures and the correct ways to exercise them. | “only with everyone’s commitment is it possible to stop the transmission of this virus, thank you for your contribution” |
Fear | Statements related to the risk and severity of COVID-19. | The virus is still active, the virus still has not disappeared, you do not see it, but it continues to circulate, the virus does not take a vacation, and with COVID-19, all care is little. | “sharing objects increases the risk of transmitting the virus” |
Epidemiological Context | Data about the number of infections and information on the spread of COVID-19. | COVID-19 press conference, today’s status report, epidemiological situation assessment in Portugal, and Public Health Authorities’ communiqués. | “COVID-19 press conference” and “today’s status report is now available” |
Regulatory Measures | Data and information about government rules and measures related to COVID-19 disease and its spread. | Extraordinary measures, restrictions, sanitation fence, support measures package, vaccination priorities, standards and technical guidelines, state of emergency, calamity, and contingency. | “the European Commission authorized the first COVID-19 vaccine for use in the European Union” |
Organizational Strategies | Information about actions, activities, and partnerships of the government. | Meetings, visits, and creation of commissions and task forces. | “government creates task-force to prepare the vaccination plan” |
Logistic and Pandemic Management Policies | Strategies and improvements applied to services and infrastructures and approaches to the field of pandemic management. | Reinforce response capacity, expansion of laboratory capacity, update contingency plans in health units, and human resources hiring. | “hospital pharmacy: medicines delivered to pharmacies and at home to avoid trips to hospitals” |
Others | Variated information that cannot be included in any theme aforementioned. | National programs, manuals disclosure, awards, distinctions, etc. | “the Directorate-General for Health (DGS) and the Shared Services of the Ministry of Health (SPMS) were distinguished by the International Hospital Federation-IHF, in the context of combating the pandemic, with the project ‘Self-Report&TraceCOVID-19′” |
SNS | DGS | ARS-Alentejo | ARS-Algarve | ARS-Lisbon and Tagus Valley | DRS-Azores | DRS-Madeira | |||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Community | % | 1.5% | 4.0% | 2.5% | 2.4% | 4.8% | 2.7% | 1.2% | - | 1.7% | 9.1% | 4.7% | 5.6% | - | 1.8% |
Interaction | 552.3 | 649.2 | 24.1 | 7446.0 | 214.7 | 140.3 | 6.0 | - | 15.0 | 18.0 | 48.8 | 5.1 | - | 46.0 | |
Protecting Yourself | % | 1.7% | 1.2% | 0.9% | 0.2% | 4.6% | 1.1% | - | - | 5.3% | - | 5.6% | 5.6% | - | 3.2% |
Interaction | 364.2 | 617.9 | 19.7 | 17271.0 | 151.2 | 68.0 | - | 14.3 | - | 50.2 | 3.4 | - | 141.3 | ||
Community and Protecting Yourself | % | 1.8% | 5.6% | 2.3% | 1.3% | 8.1% | 12.6% | - | 0.9% | 3.5% | 18.2% | 4.7% | 4.0% | - | 3.5% |
Interaction | 569.2 | 661.3 | 22.4 | 3520.2 | 141.0 | 63.1 | - | 0.0 | 22.5 | 26.5 | 86.0 | 7.0 | - | 42.1 | |
Understanding | % | 7.3% | 31.7% | 17.9% | 5.7% | 33.8% | 15.6% | 4.7% | 11.3% | 22.8% | 27.3% | 19.6% | 34.4% | 2.1% | 12.7% |
Interaction | 545.7 | 616.0 | 24.2 | 6360.4 | 149.8 | 87.3 | 11.1 | 0.0 | 26.2 | 11.3 | 56.2 | 5.3 | 1314.3 | 146.4 | |
Encouragement to Take Action | % | 6.7% | 39.7% | 26.9% | 5.7% | 25.6% | 3.9% | 7.0% | 8.5% | 33.3% | - | 33.6% | 39.2% | 0.5% | 7.1% |
Interaction | 421.0 | 768.4 | 24.1 | 7829.6 | 182.9 | 79.7 | 43.1 | 0.0 | 46.4 | - | 55.3 | 5.9 | 261.0 | 63.6 | |
Fear | % | 4.3% | 5.9% | 2.4% | 1.7% | 7.5% | 51.2% | - | 0.9% | 5.3% | 18.2% | 5.6% | 6.4% | - | 2.1% |
Interaction | 267.0 | 4.0 | 28.2 | 5628.3 | 149.9 | 58.7 | - | 0.0 | 18.7 | 16.0 | 43.7 | 5.8 | - | 234.0 | |
Epidemiological Context | % | 59.9% | 0.8% | 24.1% | 77.3% | 0.4% | 4.1% | 69.1% | 0.9% | - | - | - | - | 79.4% | 61.6% |
Interaction | 298.3 | 592.2 | 15.1 | 3507.7 | 230.0 | 69.8 | 0.4 | 0.0 | - | - | - | - | 217.0 | 14.0 | |
Regulatory Measures | % | 3.0% | 2.0% | 4.9% | 1.3% | 2.9% | 0.9% | 5.5% | 28.3% | 3.5% | - | 0.9% | 0.8% | 6.9% | 3.5% |
Interaction | 256.1 | 1517.3 | 16.7 | 4322.8 | 92.4 | 39.8 | 2.1 | 0.0 | 10.0 | - | 282.0 | 9.0 | 275.0 | 50.2 | |
Organizational Strategies | % | 2.7% | 0.8% | 2.5% | 0.4% | - | 1.9% | - | - | - | - | - | - | 2.1% | 0.3% |
Interaction | 212.5 | 522.7 | 9.4 | 2287.5 | - | 62.4 | - | - | - | - | - | - | 71.8 | 12.0 | |
Logistic and Pandemic Management Policies | % | 8.2% | 4.2% | 10.4% | 0.7% | 1.3% | 2.5% | 7.8% | 31.1% | 12.3% | 27.3% | 15.9% | 0.8% | 6.9% | 1.8% |
Interaction | 136.3 | 1021.1 | 12.6 | 27442.0 | 82.5 | 45.9 | 16.3 | 0.1 | 67.9 | 38.7 | 1955.9 | 25.0 | 533.7 | 145.8 | |
Others | % | 2.9% | 4.2% | 5.2% | 3.3% | 11.0% | 3.7% | 4.7% | 17.9% | 12.3% | - | 9.4% | 3.2% | 2.1% | 2.4% |
Interaction | 439.0 | 651.7 | 16.0 | 3162.4 | 90.8 | 40.4 | 16.3 | 0.0 | 21.0 | - | 52.7 | 6.3 | 406.3 | 43.4 | |
Total Themes | % | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% |
Interaction | 320.3 | 708.1 | 19.6 | 4226.1 | 152.0 | 72.2 | 6.0 | 0.0 | 35.5 | 23.0 | 359.5 | 5.7 | 267.2 | 50.1 |
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Azevedo, D.; Plácido, A.I.; Herdeiro, M.T.; Roque, F.; Roque, V. How Portuguese Health Entities Used Social Media to Face the Public Health Emergency during COVID-19 Disease. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19, 11942. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph191911942
Azevedo D, Plácido AI, Herdeiro MT, Roque F, Roque V. How Portuguese Health Entities Used Social Media to Face the Public Health Emergency during COVID-19 Disease. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2022; 19(19):11942. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph191911942
Chicago/Turabian StyleAzevedo, Daniela, Ana Isabel Plácido, Maria Teresa Herdeiro, Fátima Roque, and Vítor Roque. 2022. "How Portuguese Health Entities Used Social Media to Face the Public Health Emergency during COVID-19 Disease" International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 19, no. 19: 11942. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph191911942