ABSTRACT
During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, social service agencies (SSAs) play a crucial role in supporting renal patients, who are particularly vulnerable to infections. Social media platforms such as Facebook, serves as an effective medium for these SSAs to disseminate information. Content analysis of the SSAs' Facebook posts can provide insights on whether Facebook has been adequately utilized during the COVID-19 pandemic and enable SSAs to improve their social media use in future pandemics. This study aimed to compare renal-related SSAs' Facebook post content before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Facebook posts of three SSAs National Kidney Foundation (NKF), Kidney Dialysis Foundation (KDF), and Muslim Kidney Action Association (MKAC), posted during the pre-COVID-19 period (January 23, 2019 to June 2, 2019) and the peri-COVID-19 period (January 23, 2020 to June 1, 2020) were extracted. A classification scheme was developed by two coders with themes derived inductively and deductively. Each Facebook post was assigned with a theme. Quantitative analyses indicate that the number of Facebook posts increased from 115 in the pre-COVID-19 period to 293 in the peri-COVID-19 period. During peri-COVID-19, posts regarding lifestyle changes, donations and infectious disease surfaced. While the proportion of posts about encouraging kindness increased from one to 77 posts, the proportion of posts about community-based events and psychosocial support decreased from 44 to 15 posts and 17 to 10 posts respectively during the two periods. Facebook was found to be well-utilized by two of the three renal SSAs in engaging their beneficiaries during the pandemic. During future pandemics, renal SSAs should place emphasis on posts related to psychosocial support and encouraging kindness. Further studies are required to ascertain the impact of COVID-19 from the perspective of renal patients and also to validate the classification scheme which was developed in this study. The study's methodology and classification scheme can be used to guide future studies for evaluating the social media outreach performance of renal health support groups.
ABSTRACT
The Singapore government implemented multiple restrictive measures as the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19) spread through the community, thereby affecting the support service of cancer-related social service agencies (cancer-SSAs). We are interested to understand how Singapore's cancer-SSAs utilized the social media platform Facebook to overcome the restrictions which were introduced due to COVID-19. Facebook posts from two prominent cancer-SSAs 365 Cancer Prevention Society (365CPS) and Singapore Cancer Society (SCS) between comparable periods in 2019 and 2020 were extracted. These posts were categorized using a classification scheme which was specifically developed by two coders with adequate intercoder reliability. Statistical analyses were performed to determine if there was a significant difference in the frequency of posts between 2019 and 2020, and across three specific periods in 2020. Results indicate that 365CPS appears to have adapted to the pandemic by increasing their posting frequency on Facebook in 2020, but the same was not evident for SCS. However, both SSAs tweaked their social media outreach strategy in line with social distancing measures, publishing posts detailing activities that beneficiaries can participate from home such as healthy recipes and virtual events. SSAs can scale up their efforts to achieve a higher level of health promotion and support for their beneficiaries. Further qualitative studies are required to ascertain the impact of COVID-19 from the perspective of beneficiaries and validate the classification scheme which was developed in this study. The classification scheme could be used in ascertaining the quality of social media communication between public/private support groups and patients.