Experiences and Views of Young People and Healthcare Professionals of Using Social Media to Self-Manage Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus: A Thematic Synthesis of Qualitative Studies (Preprint)

Abstract

Social media have shown the potential to support type 1 diabetes self-management by providing information, emotional, and peer-to-peer support. However, young people’s and healthcare professionals’ perceptions toward the use of social media for type 1 diabetes self-management have not been systematically reviewed.

To explore and summarize the experiences and views of young people with type 1 diabetes and their healthcare professionals on using social media for self-management across qualitative findings.

We searched Medline, Embase, PsycINFO, and CINAHL from 2012-2023 using medical subject heading terms and text words related to type 1 diabetes and social media. We screened and selected the studies according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria. We quality appraised and characterized the included studies and conducted a thematic synthesis.

We included 11 studies in our synthesis. Nine of them were qualitative and two were mixed methods studies. Ten focused on young people with type 1 diabetes and one on healthcare professionals. All used content analysis and were of moderate to high quality. Thirteen descriptive themes were yielded by our thematic synthesis, contributing to five analytic themes: 1) differences in how young people interact with social media; 2) characteristics of social media platforms that influence their use and uptake for type 1 diabetes self-management; 3) social media as a source of information; 4) impact on young people's coping and emotional wellbeing; and 5) impact on support from and relationships with healthcare professionals and services.

The synthesis suggests we should consider leveraging social media's peer support capabilities to augment traditional services for young people with type 1 diabetes. However, patients may have privacy concerns about healthcare professionals’ involvement in their online activities. This warrants an update of existing guidelines to help young people use social media safely for self-managing their diabetes.