RESEARCH ARTICLE


Evaluation of the Role of Twitter in Increasing the Awareness and Knowledge about Diabetes Among Citizens of Saudi Arabia



Hala Alhodaib1, Manal Alshakhs2, Sara Alsaidan2, Hamdah Aldossari2, Maryam Alnass2, Fahad Alanezi3, Duaa Aljabri2, Deema AL-salman2, Asma Al-Fayez2, Bashair AlThani3, Turki Alanzi2, *
1 Department of Community Health Sciences, College of Applied Medical Sciences, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
2 Health Information Management and Technology Department, College of Public Health, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, Dammam, Saudi Arabia
3 College of Business Administration, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, Dammam, Saudi Arabia

Article Information


Identifiers and Pagination:

Year: 2021
Volume: 14
First Page: 605
Last Page: 611
Publisher ID: TOPHJ-14-605
DOI: 10.2174/1874944502114010605

Article History:

Received Date: 7/8/2021
Revision Received Date: 21/10/2021
Acceptance Date: 29/10/2021
Electronic publication date: 31/12/2021
Collection year: 2021

Article Metrics

CrossRef Citations:
0
Total Statistics:

Full-Text HTML Views: 990
Abstract HTML Views: 450
PDF Downloads: 261
Total Views/Downloads: 1701
Unique Statistics:

Full-Text HTML Views: 572
Abstract HTML Views: 275
PDF Downloads: 219
Total Views/Downloads: 1066



Creative Commons License
© 2021 Alhodaib et al.

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at Health Information Management and Technology Department, College of Public Health, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, Dammam, Saudi Arabia; E-mail: talanzi@iau.edu.sa


Abstract

Purpose:

The objective of this research was to evaluate the role of Twitter in increasing the awareness and knowledge of diabetes among citizens of Saudi Arabia.

Methods:

In this research we used a purposive sampling method and carried out a quantitative experimental study design. The participants were adults Twitter users from Saudi Arabia that had relative diabetic patients. The sample size was 200 participants, which were divided into an intervention and a control group. Each group consisted of 100 participants. The intervention group was recruited through Twitter, and the control group was recruited through WhatsApp. Data were analyzed and interpreted using statistical techniques, such as paired t-test, the simple t-test and the ANOVA.

Results:

The mean diabetes knowledge test (DKT) score of the intervention group was Mean=13.57, SD= 3.46. After the intervention process, the mean (M) increased to 17.06 and the standard deviation (SD) decreased to 2.35. According to these outcomes, the paired t-test showed that the use of Twitter had an influence on increasing diabetes awareness. Instead, for the control group, the mean (M) was 13.68, and the standard deviation (SD) was 3.72 at the baseline. During the study process, the mean (M) of the control group increased to 14 and the standard deviation (SD) augmented to 3.59. Then, according to the paired t-test, we concluded that in the control group, there was no effect on the participants’ knowledge.

Conclusion:

The results suggested that Twitter had a positive impact on increasing awareness and diabetes knowledge among adult Twitter users in Saudi Arabia.

Keywords: Twitter, SANAD, Awareness, Knowledge, WhatsApp, Diabetes.