File
Merolli M.1, Busuttil M.L.2, Wåhlin C.3,4, Green A.5
1The University of Melbourne, Health and Biomedical Informatics Centre, Melbourne Medical School, Melbourne, Australia, 2Ministry for Social Dialogue, Consumer Affairs, and Civil Liberties, Valletta, Malta, 3Linköping University Hospital, Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Linköping, Sweden, 4Institute for Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, Unit of Intervention and Implementation Research, Stockholm, Sweden, 5Coventry University, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, Coventry, United Kingdom
Background: Digital technology, such as social media, offers professional communities the opportunity to form with increasingly ubiquitous connectivity. In 2015, the global community of Physical Therapists (PTs) gathered for the World Confederation for Physical Therapy (WCPT) Congress. Recognising social media's potential to support the goals of the PT global community and those of the WCPT, the hashtag #GlobalPT was conceived during the social media networking session to promote communication amongst members. Twitter has been the primary platform, with #GlobalPT acting as a slogan or vision for a globally connected PT community. This study explores global reach and dominant communication themes emergent within #GlobalPT activity.
Purpose: #GlobalPT was launched on May 3rd, 2015 at WCPT Congress Singapore. Since this time, it has evolved into a symbol for the digitally connected PT community. This study investigated the reach, influence and communication practices of #GlobalPT. Objectives of the research were to determine whether #GlobalPT has been successful in driving communication practices, and to explore the themes underlying these practices. The intended outcome being that the PT community may better understand how social media can provide a platform for discussion of professional issues, while also supporting the outcomes of the WCPT strategic plan.
Methods: The biggest single period of tweet activity for #GlobalPT was October 2015, coinciding with 3 major events: The Australian Physiotherapy Association Conference, The Physiotherapy UK Conference and release of the WCPT draft strategic plan 2016-2021. Using purposive sampling from this period for analysis, the project team examined a data set of 988 publically available tweets. Descriptive statistical analysis quantified tweet data, and a detailed qualitative inductive phenomenological thematic content analysis (TCA) categorised themes. Re-tweets were removed for coding purposes, as well as those with no data, or only a URL. A final set of 377 tweets remained for coding.
Results: Descriptive statistics highlighted #GlobalPT activity across 24 countries (top-most the UK), in 4 languages (929/988, 94.03% in English). Europe was the most active geographic region (738/988, 74.70%), followed by Oceania (120/988, 12.15%). TCA revealed 8 unique themes underpinning the digital communication practices of the PT Community. Of these, the three most apparent themes were: sharing information (108/377, 28.65%), promotional activity
(93/377, 24.67%), and positive feedback (69/377, 18.30%).
Conclusion(s): The early success of #GlobalPT in building a digital PT community is demonstrated. Its international spread and varying communication themes show versatility, and that it is fit for purpose. It also provides preliminary evidence for social medias unique potential to assist the WCPT in attaining its strategic goals, specifically Outcome 1, a connected global community of PTs.
Implications: This study provides insight into digital communication practices of PTs across a global network. Given the projects links to the activities of the WCPT, it may act as a leadership and engagement beacon for the digital endeavours of the profession across the global community.
Funding acknowledgements: No funding received. Acknowledgement to Tracy Bury and Emma Stokes of WCPT for expert consultation, and all PTs tweeting #GlobalPT
Topic: Professional issues
Ethics approval: Twitter data is freely available, open and public. Project was purely observational of public behaviours. Further approval was not required.
All authors, affiliations and abstracts have been published as submitted.
