Twitter response to the United States Preventive Services Task Force recommendations against screening with prostate-specific antigen.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

To examine public and media response to the draft (October 2011) and finalised (May 2012) recommendations of the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) against prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing via Twitter, a popular social network with over 200 million active users.

Materials and methods

We used a mixed-methods design to analyse posts on Twitter, known as 'tweets'. Using the search term 'prostate cancer', we archived tweets in the 24-h periods following the release of both the draft and the finalised USPSTF recommendations. We recorded tweet rate per h and developed a coding system to assess the type of user and sentiment expressed in tweets and linked articles.

Results

After the draft and finalised USPSTF recommendations were released,

SUBMITTER: Prabhu V 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4216238 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature