TY - JOUR PY - 2018// TI - Uncovering cyberincivility among nurses and nursing students on Twitter: a data mining study JO - International journal of nursing studies A1 - De Gagne, Jennie C. A1 - Hall, Katherine A1 - Conklin, Jamie L. A1 - Yamane, Sandra S. A1 - Wyman Roth, Noelle A1 - Chang, Jianhong A1 - Kim, Sang Suk SP - 24 EP - 31 VL - 89 IS - N2 - BACKGROUND: Although misuse of social networking sites, particularly Twitter, has occurred, little is known about the prevalence, content, and characteristics of uncivil tweets posted by nurses and nursing students.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to describe the characteristics of tweets posted by nurses and nursing students on Twitter with a focus on cyberincivility.

METHOD: A cross-sectional, data-mining study was held from February through April 2017. Using a data-mining tool, we extracted quantitative and qualitative data from a sample of 163 self-identified nurses and nursing students on Twitter. The analysis of 8934 tweets was performed by a combination of SAS 9.4 for descriptive and inferential statistics including logistic regression and NVivo 11 to derive descriptive patterns of unstructured textual data.

FINDINGS: We categorized 413 tweets (4.62%, n = 8934) as uncivil. Of these, 240 (58%) were related to nursing and the other 173 (42%) to personal life. Of the 163 unique users, 60 (36.8%) generated those 413 uncivil posts, tweeting inappropriately at least once over a period of six weeks. Most uncivil tweets contained profanity (n = 135, 32.7%), sexually explicit or suggestive material (n = 37, 9.0%), name-calling (n = 14, 3.4%), and discriminatory remarks against minorities (n = 9, 2.2%). Other uncivil content included product promotion, demeaning comments toward patients, aggression toward health professionals, and HIPAA violations.

CONCLUSION: Nurses and nursing students share uncivil tweets that could tarnish the image of the profession and violate codes of ethics. Individual, interpersonal, and institutional efforts should be made to foster a culture of cybercivility.

Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Language: en

LA - en SN - 0020-7489 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2018.09.009 ID - ref1 ER -