The Mutual Influence of the World Health Organization (WHO) and Twitter Users During COVID-19: Network Agenda-Setting Analysis.

BACKGROUND: Little is known about the role of the World Health Organization (WHO) in communicating with the public on social media during a global health emergency. More specifically, there is no study about the relationship between the agendas of the WHO and Twitter users during the COVID-19 pandemic. OBJECTIVE: This study utilizes the network agenda-setting model to investigate the mutual relationship between the agenda of the WHO's official Twitter account and the agenda of 7.5 million of its Twitter followers regarding COVID-19. METHODS: Content analysis was applied to 7090 tweets posted by the WHO on Twitter from January 1, 2020, to July 31, 2020, to identify the topics of tweets. The quadratic assignment procedure (QAP) was used to investigate the relationship between the WHO agenda network and the agenda network of the 6 Twitter user categories, including "health care professionals," "academics," "politicians," "print and electronic media," "legal professionals," and the "private sector." Additionally, 98 Granger causality statistical tests were performed to determine which topic in the WHO agenda had an effect on the corresponding topic in each Twitter user category and vice versa. RESULTS: Content analysis revealed 7 topics that reflect the WHO agenda related to the COVID-19 pandemic, including "prevention," "solidarity," "charity," "teamwork," "ill-effect," "surveillance," and "credibility." Results of the QAP showed significant and strong correlations between the WHO agenda network and the agenda network of each Twitter user category. These results provide evidence that WHO had an overall effect on different types of Twitter users on the identified topics. For instance, the Granger causality tests indicated that the WHO tweets influenced politicians and print and electronic media about "surveillance." The WHO tweets also influenced academics and the private sector about "credibility" and print and electronic media about "ill-effect." Additionally, Twitter users affected some topics in the WHO. For instance, WHO followers affected "charity" and "prevention" in the WHO. CONCLUSIONS: This paper extends theorizing on agenda setting by providing empirical evidence that agenda-setting effects vary by topic and types of Twitter users. Although prior studies showed that network agenda setting is a "one-way" model, the novel findings of this research confirm a "2-way" or "multiway" effect of agenda setting on social media due to the interactions between the content creators and audiences. The WHO can determine which topics should be promoted on social media during different phases of a pandemic and collaborate with other public health gatekeepers to collectively make them salient in the public.

Identifying Frames of the COVID-19 Infodemic: Thematic Analysis of Misinformation Stories Across Media.

Background: The word "infodemic" refers to the deluge of false information about an event, and it is a global challenge for today's society. The sheer volume of misinformation circulating during the COVID-19 pandemic has been harmful to people around the world. Therefore, it is important to study different aspects of misinformation related to the pandemic. Objective: This paper aimed to identify the main subthemes related to COVID-19 misinformation on various platforms, from traditional outlets to social media. This paper aimed to place these subthemes into categories, track the changes, and explore patterns in prevalence, over time, across different platforms and contexts. Methods: From a theoretical perspective, this research was rooted in framing theory; it also employed thematic analysis to identify the main themes and subthemes related to COVID-19 misinformation. The data were collected from 8 fact-checking websites that formed a sample of 127 pieces of false COVID-19 news published from January 1, 2020 to March 30, 2020. Results: The findings revealed 4 main themes (attribution, impact, protection and solutions, and politics) and 19 unique subthemes within those themes related to COVID-19 misinformation. Governmental and political organizations (institutional level) and administrators and politicians (individual level) were the 2 most frequent subthemes, followed by origination and source, home remedies, fake statistics, treatments, drugs, and pseudoscience, among others. Results indicate that the prevalence of misinformation subthemes had altered over time between January 2020 and March 2020. For instance, false stories about the origin and source of the virus were frequent initially (January). Misinformation regarding home remedies became a prominent subtheme in the middle (February), while false information related to government organizations and politicians became popular later (March). Although conspiracy theory web pages and social media outlets were the primary sources of misinformation, surprisingly, results revealed trusted platforms such as official government outlets and news organizations were also avenues for creating COVID-19 misinformation. Conclusions: The identified themes in this study reflect some of the information attitudes and behaviors, such as denial, uncertainty, consequences, and solution-seeking, that provided rich information grounds to create different types of misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some themes also indicate that the application of effective communication strategies and the creation of timely content were used to persuade human minds with false stories in different phases of the crisis. The findings of this study can be beneficial for communication officers, information professionals, and policy makers to combat misinformation in future global health crises or related events.

Framing of and Attention to COVID-19 on Twitter: Thematic Analysis of Hashtags.

BACKGROUND: Although past research has focused on COVID-19-related frames in the news media, such research may not accurately capture and represent the perspectives of people from diverse backgrounds. Additionally, research on the public attention to COVID-19 as reflected through frames on social media is scarce. OBJECTIVE: This study identified the frames about the COVID-19 pandemic in the public discourse on Twitter, which voices diverse opinions. This study also investigated the amount of public attention to those frames on Twitter. METHODS: We collected 22 trending hashtags related to COVID-19 in the United States and 694,582 tweets written in English containing these hashtags in March 2020 and analyzed them via thematic analysis. Public attention to these frames was measured by evaluating the amount of public engagement with frames and public adoption of those frames. RESULTS: We identified 9 frames including "public health guidelines," "quarantine life," "solidarity," "evidence and facts," "call for action," "politics," "post-pandemic life," "shortage panic," and "conflict." Results showed that some frames such as "call for action" are more appealing than others during a global pandemic, receiving greater public adoption and engagement. The "call for action" frame had the highest engagement score, followed by "conflict" and "evidence and facts." Additionally, "post-pandemic life" had the highest adoption score, followed by "call for action" and "shortage panic." The findings indicated that the frequency of a frame on social media does not necessarily mean greater public adoption of or engagement with the frame. CONCLUSIONS: This study contributes to framing theory and research by demonstrating how trending hashtags can be used as new user-generated data to identify frames on social media. This study concludes that the identified frames such as "quarantine life" and "conflict" and themes such as "isolation" and "toilet paper panic" represent the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. The consequences could be (1) exclusively related to COVID-19, such as hand hygiene or isolation; (2) related to any health crisis such as social support of vulnerable groups; and (3) generic that are irrespective of COVID-19, such as homeschooling or remote working.

Factors affecting smartphone adoption for accessing information in medical settings.

OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to acquire knowledge about the factors affecting smartphone adoption for accessing information in medical settings in Iranian Hospitals. METHODS: A qualitative and quantitative approach was used to conduct this study. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 21 medical residents and interns in 2013 to identify determinant factors for smartphone adoption. Afterwards, nine relationships were hypothesised. We developed a questionnaire to test these hypotheses and to evaluate the importance of each factor. Structural equation modelling was used to analyse the causal relations between model parameters and to accurately identify determinant factors. RESULTS: Eight factors were identified in the qualitative phase of the study, including perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, training, internal environment, personal experience, social impacts, observability and job related characteristics. Among the studied factors, perceived usefulness, personal experience and job related characteristics were significantly associated with attitude to use a smartphone which accounted for 64% of the variance in attitude. Perceived usefulness had the strongest impact on attitude to use a smartphone. CONCLUSION: The factors that emerged from interviews were consistent with the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and some previous studies. TAM is a reliable model for understanding the factors of smartphone acceptance in medical settings.

Predictive value of miR-210 as a novel biomarker for pre-eclampsia: a systematic review protocol.

INTRODUCTION: Pre-eclampsia (PE) is a serious condition affecting 3-5% of all pregnancies worldwide. However, underlying molecular pathogenesis of this disease has largely remained unknown. Recently, several studies have indicated the possibility role of microRNAs, especially miR-210, in the aetiology of PE. The aim of this systematic review is to assess the possible role of miR-210 as a novel biomarker for the prediction of PE. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: Using a combination of mesh terms 'preeclampsia', 'microRNA' and their equivalents, an electronic search will be performed for all observational studies (cross sectional, case-control and cohort) in PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, Embase, Cochrane, LILACS and OvidSP MEDLINE from January 2005 to December 2015. Furthermore, other sources are searched, including grey literature, reference lists of relevant primary studies as well as key journals. Study selection, data extraction and quality assessment of studies will be performed independently by 2 reviewers, and any disagreement will be resolved by consensus. If sufficient data are available, it will be combined by either fixed or random effects models. We will investigate the source)s(and degree of heterogeneity using 'Heterogeneity χ2' and I2. Heterogeneity would be investigated through either subgroup analysis or metaregression. Stata V.11.1 will be used for data analysis. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: The results of this study are disseminated in peer-reviewed journal articles and academic presentations. Formal ethical approval is not required, since the secondary data will be collected. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: CRD42015032345.

Ranking Iranian biomedical research centers according to H-variants (G, M, A, R) in Scopus and Web of Science.

BACKGROUND: We conducted a comprehensive bibliometrics analysis to calculate the H, G, M, A and R indicators for all Iranian biomedical research centers (IBRCs) from the output of ISI Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus between 1991 and 2010. We compared the research performance of the research centers according to these indicators. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional and descriptive-analytical study, conducted on 104 Iranian biomedical research centers between August and September 2011. We collected our data through Scopus and WoS. Pearson correlation coefficient between the scientometrics indicators was calculated using SPSS, version 16. RESULTS: The mean values of all indicators were higher in Scopus than in WoS. Drug Applied Research Center of Tabriz University of Medical Sciences had the highest number of publications in both WoS and Scopus databases. This research center along with Royan Institute received the highest number of citations in both Scopus and WoS, respectively. The highest correlation was seen between G and R (.998) in WoS and between G and R (.990) in Scopus. Furthermore, the highest overlap of the 10 top IBRCs was between G and H in WoS (100%) and between G-R (90%) and H-R (90%) in Scopus. CONCLUSION: Research centers affiliated to the top ranked Iranian medical universities obtained a better position with respect to the studied scientometrics indicators. All aforementioned indicators are important for ranking bibliometrics studies as they refer to different attributes of scientific output and citation aspects.

A qualitative study on personal information management (PIM) in clinical and basic sciences faculty members of a medical university in Iran.

BACKGROUND: Personal Information Management (PIM) refers to the tools and activities to save and retrieve personal information for future uses. This study examined the PIM activities of faculty members of Iran University of Medical Sciences (IUMS) regarding their preferred PIM tools and four aspects of acquiring, organizing, storing and retrieving personal information. METHODS: The qualitative design was based on phenomenology approach and we carried out 37 interviews with clinical and basic sciences faculty members of IUMS in 2014. The participants were selected using a random sampling method. All interviews were recorded by a digital voice recorder, and then transcribed, codified and finally analyzed using NVivo 8 software. RESULTS: The use of PIM electronic tools (e-tools) was below expectation among the studied sample and just 37% had reasonable knowledge of PIM e-tools such as, external hard drivers, flash memories etc. However, all participants used both paper and electronic devices to store and access information. Internal mass memories (in Laptops) and flash memories were the most used e-tools to save information. Most participants used "subject" (41.00%) and "file name" (33.7 %) to save, organize and retrieve their stored information. Most users preferred paper-based rather than electronic tools to keep their personal information. CONCLUSION: Faculty members had little knowledge about PIM techniques and tools. Those who organized personal information could easier retrieve the stored information for future uses. Enhancing familiarity with PIM tools and training courses of PIM tools and techniques are suggested.

Content analysis of articles published in Iranian scientific nursing journals from 2009 through 2011.

BACKGROUND: Little is known about the features of Iranian nursing journals, specifically the subject areas used in articles, study designs, sampling methods, international collaboration of Iranian nursing scholars, specialty and academic rank of authors, and the most frequently contributing academic institutions in articles. OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to analyze the content of the articles published in Iranian scientific nursing journals. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Quantitative content analysis was implemented to study Iranian nursing journals, which were approved by the commission for accreditation and improvement of Iranian medical journals in 2011. Thus, 763 articles from six journals, published from 2009 through 2011, were investigated. Data were extracted from the abstracts and when necessary, from the full-text of articles by visiting the websites of these journals. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data. RESULTS: The main subjects of published articles in Iranian scientific nursing journals were consecutively renal dialysis (n = 21), intensive care unit (n = 16), nursing education (n = 15), patient satisfaction (n = 13), quality of life (n = 12), health education (n = 11), patient education (n = 11), pain (n = 10), and education (n = 9). The majority of authors had nursing and midwifery specialty (52.59%) followed by epidemiology/biostatistics specialty (7.72%). Isfahan, Tehran, Shahid Beheshti, Iran, Baqiyatallah, and Urmia universities of medical sciences had consecutively the largest number of publications in the studied journals. Only three papers (0.39%) were published by the international collaboration. CONCLUSIONS: Iranian nursing journals should publish special issues in the neglected subject areas. These journals should encourage authors to publish research evidence with higher quality.