Abstract
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the information stream has overflowed with accurate information, misinformation, and constantly changing guidelines. There is a great need for guidance on the identification of trustworthy health information, and official channels are struggling to keep pace with this infodemic. Consequently, a Facebook group was created where volunteer medical physicians would answer laypeople's questions about the 2019 novel coronavirus. There is not much precedence in health care professional-driven Facebook groups, and the framework was thus developed continuously. We ended up with an approach without room for debate, which fostered a sense of calmness, trust, and safety among the questioners. Substantial moderator effort was needed to ensure high quality and consistency through collaboration among the presently >200 physicians participating in this group. At the time of writing, the group provides a much-needed service to >58,000 people in Denmark during this crisis.
Original language | English |
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Article number | e24586 |
Journal | Journal of Medical Internet Research |
Volume | 23 |
Issue number | 4 |
Pages (from-to) | e24586 |
ISSN | 1439-4456 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 20 Apr 2021 |
Keywords
- COVID-19
- Coronavirus
- Digital health literacy
- EHealth literacy
- Framework
- Health information
- Health literacy
- Health promotion
- Infodemic
- Infodemiology
- Mental health
- Misinformation
- Pandemic
- Patient-physician relationship
- Public health
- Social media
- Trust
- Web-based community