Influence of WeChat official account platform on continuing medical education for medical professionals / 中华医学教育探索杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To explore the role of WeChat official account platform (WOAP) in knowledge acquisition for medical professionals (MPs), and to provide a new way for continuing medical education.Methods:With the help of the "Tencent Questionnaire" platform, an electronic version of the questionnaire was designed, which was sent to the MPs through "Spine Jizhu" WOAP, and forwarded by WeChat groups and friends circle. The survey included the general information of MPs, the evaluation on "Spine Jizhu" WOAP and the influence of medical WOAP on their knowledge acquisition. The questionnaires were collected and analyzed descriptively.Results:A total of 901 valid questionnaires were recovered, and 91.9% (828) of the MPs chose the rest time as the most suitable push time, with the most choice from 18 00 to 21 00, and the most push frequency of "twice a week"; 97.3% (877) of MPs selected "very satisfied" or "relatively satisfied" for the overall evaluation of "Spine Jizhu" WOAP; MP rated the quality of articles pushed by "Spine Jizhu" WOAP with a score of (8.5±1.4); 79.1% (713) of MPs followed 5 or more medical WOAPs, and most of them valued the quality and reliability of the pushed contents; 92.7%(835) of MPs believed that the medical WOAP was "very helpful" and "relatively helpful" in enhancing their professional knowledge. In terms of access to the latest professional knowledge, 68.4%(616) of MPs chose "WOAP pushed articles", while only 18.4%(166) of MPs chose "traditional paper media (periodicals, magazines, newspapers and books)".Conclusion:WOAP is aimed at followed people and pushes original articles at a fixed time and frequency to help MPs to acquire knowledge and provide a new supplementary form for continuing medical education.