Introduction
Social media have become an immediate part of people’s daily lives. They function as communication channels and socialization tools in both personal and professional domains. From the perspective of facilitating organizational processes, the use of social media might be beneficial due to the opportunities for better hiring and community connectivity. However, there are ways in which healthcare professionals misuse social media, which might jeopardize the trustworthiness of the organization. It is essential to use self-reflection and analysis to identify potential and occurring misbehavior on social media to ensure it does not breach professional nursing standards.
The Role of Social Media in Nursing
As it has been stated, social media is an important communication tool in the nursing profession. Social media is defined as “the internet applications that allow the creation and communication of User Generated Content” (Wang et al., 2019, p. 20). Organizations use different social media sites to connect with potential employees, disseminate health promotion information, and use social media to create professional networking (Farsi, 2021, para. 1-2). Moreover, special regulations aimed at protecting patient confidentiality and privacy, as well as ensuring the ethicality of healthcare workers’ conduct online, have been developed and included in the professional nursing standards (Griffith & Tengnah, 2020, p. 298). Thus, the use of social media by nurses differs from its use by individuals not involved in healthcare professions, which necessitates the examination of possible drawbacks in one’s online behavior.
Analysis of Social Media Posts According to the Professional Nursing Standards
The analysis of my social media activity on different websites is a valuable tool for examining the ethicality of my online conduct. In particular, when using a comments feature on one of the social media websites, I posted several comments on my patients’ personal pages, which might reveal their relationship with me as a nurse. According to research, such conduct might be considered a breach of patient privacy since other users might infer that since I am commenting on the individual’s personal matters, I might be their health provider (Wang et al., 2019, p. 20). In this regard, I should not have engaged in public communication with the patient to eliminate the risk of disclosing their health issues.
Another example is my post of a photo with a patient, where the face or identity of the patient is not clear, but the description of the patient might yield hints and guesses on who it might be. In this case, I exposed my patient to the breach of their confidentiality since their identity might have been revealed based on the details (although not personal) that I provided. When any private or confidential information about patients is disclosed by nurses, such actions are considered a breach of nursing professional standards (Wang et al., 2019, p. 23). Therefore, additional instructions and training on ethical behavior online should be improved and better disseminated.
Conclusion
In summation, the use of social media is important for the healthcare community since it allows for establishing networking and professional development for nurses and physicians. However, as the analysis of social media use reveals, there are misbehaviors that nurses might display online, which might violate patients’ confidentiality and privacy. For that matter, it is essential to enhance the instructions and training of nurses on the proper use of social media with a focus on patient rights.
References
Farsi, D. (2021). Social media and health care, part I: Literature review of social media use by health care providers. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 23(4), e23205.
Griffith, R., & Tengnah, C. (2020). Law and professional issues in nursing. Sage.
Wang, Z., Wang, S., Zhang, Y., & Jiang, X. (2019). Social media usage and online professionalism among registered nurses: A cross-sectional survey. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 98, 19-26.