Some patients just dread Magnetic Resonance Imaging or MRI-a test wherein the patient goes in a special machine to make pictures of organs and structures inside the patient's body. It can be really stressful for many people but clinicians have become more creative and decided to utilize the rampant social networking site Twitter. While Twitter has been known as a #hashtag hub for breaking news and celebrity tweets, a new study published in the Journal of Medical Imaging and Radiation sees potential in the social networking to be a helpful feedback tool.
Jonathan Hewis of Charles Sturt University in Australia analyzed 464 tweets associated to MRI in one month. Hewis noticed that patients, their friends and families were tweeting their thoughts, insights and feelings about three aspects of the MRI procedure: MRI appointment, scan experience, and diagnosis.
Twitter's accessibility and the people's openness manifested through the microblogging site may be convenient for medical practitioners gather fundamental information that may help them improve their field of work. Example of this is the noted anxiety and stress expressed by the users concerning the process. Hewis sees this as an important clinical consideration for MRI facilities and referrers.
Other thoughts revealed and decoded from the patients' tweets were the following: cost of the procedure, feelings of claustrophobia, uneasiness inside the machine and the sound the MRI machine makes.
However, not all tweets were talking about stress and negativity. It was also found in the study that Twitter has also been used by friends and parents in expressing their sentiments of encouragement and support.
Some patients also used the 130-character post to thank the healthcare teams that accommodated them. A few also spoke about what they liked during the process such as chances to nap. The study exhibits the probable use of Twitter as a feasible platform to conduct research into the patients' experiences during the course of their medical treatments.
