S. Saqib1, R.S. Martins2, J. Luo2, K. Poulikidis2, M. Latif2, F. Bhora2 1Aga Khan University Medical College, Surgery, Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan 2Hackensack Meridian Health, Edison, NEW JERSEY, USA
Introduction:
Less than 5% of eligible patients are screened for lung cancer annually. The dissemination of actionable healthcare information to patients is critical in ensuring successful screening efforts. As social media flourishes as a major source of healthcare information, particularly with younger audiences, there is great interest in the potential for information dissemination on these platforms.
Methods:
The top 35 trending Tiktok videos with the #lungcancer tag were mined for viewer engagement metrics and thematically analyzed. Actionability was classified using the PEMAT Tool for Audiovisual Materials as high, moderate, or low (Table).
Results:
A majority of top trending videos focused on symptoms (54%) of lung cancer, followed by diagnosis/treatment (both 14%) and risk factors (9%). Videos regarding symptoms also had the highest viewer engagement metrics.
While videos about risk factors were of high actionability and exclusively delivered by healthcare providers, videos related to symptom recognition, diagnosis and treatment were less actionable and less likely to be delivered by a licensed provider (Table).
Conclusion:
Existing TikTok content concerning lung cancer is largely delivered by healthcare professions and relates to symptom recognition. Healthcare systems can alleviate patient anxiety by strategically leveraging social media to cover gaps in healthcare information dissemination.