Cancer nursing and social media: Capturing the Zeitgeist

Abstract

Background Cancer nursing is required to identify potential advances in nursing practice, assess their relevance for ones own particular clinical situation, gather opinion on any potential change in practice (both locally and farther afield), integrate this into practice, evaluate success and then disseminate the learning from this process. Until relatively recently this process could be reasonably laborious and slow moving. However, the advent of social media sites and software and their use in nursing has streamlined this process making the gathering, group analysis and dissemination of clinical information faster and more intuitive. This study considers the authors own experience in using two social media sites (Twitter and Facebook) to gather and share clinical infomation as part of the UK Oncology Nursing Society and when setting up a new Members Interest Group for UK Lead Cancer Nurses. Methods This piece describes the use of Twitter and Facebook group as a professional tool to -: 1) Gather cancer nursing opinion on a particular subject (case study - Streamlining MDT Working in England and the contrubution of specialist Nursing) - potentially a ’digitall Delphi Technique’ using Twitter and Facebook 2) Build group cohesion, ask clinical questions, share information and practice and build relationships within a newly established UK group of Lead Cancer Nurses. The experiences of UKONS members of using social media professionally will be gathered, the clinical effectivenes of using social media to gather nursing opinion on a particular nursing problem (streamlining MDT working) will be analysed. Results The experiences of cancer nurses in using social media in professional settings will be presented as part of an overall narrative and key themes will be presented and discussed Number and range of responses to a clinical question posed on social media will be presented with consideration of how effective a tool Twitter is in gathering clinical opinion and driving improvement. Ths will be presented numerically and graphically. Conclusions The positive impact of the professional use of social media will be presented. Potential uses and fine tuning of these tools in cancer nursing will be considered Potential pitfalls and negative effects will also be considered. Legal entity responsible for the study The author. Funding Has not received any funding. Disclosure The author has declared no conflicts of interest.