| Abstract [eng] |
Background. Social networks have become inseparable in many parts of our lives. Nowadays frequent mother search for information about children’s health in virtual social communities. However, little is known about how Lithuanian mothers use social networks to search for information about preschool children ‘s health. This study aimed to identify features of the content related to preschool children ‘s health on “Facebook”. Tasks. To identify features of the post’s content, characteristics of the most engaging posts, and characteristics of the comments. Methods. This study included all accessible posts published in 2021 on one Facebook group with more than 21 000 Lithuanian mothers. In total, there were analyzed 1674 posts and 3234 comments on the most engaged group of posts (gastrointestinal disorders). Chi-square tests were used to examine the differences in posts between social and demographic characteristics of record authors, health topics, post aim, tone, structure, form, number of reactions to posts (p≤0,05). Also comment type and recommendations were identified. Results: Among all posts, 73% were related to children’s health. The most common health topics included injuries (17.1%), healthcare (15.1%), gastrointestinal disorders (9.7%), allergies and skin diseases (9.7%), nutrition, physical activity, and health promotion (9.3%), nurture (8.9%). The most common aim was to ask about personal experience (47.5%), and recommendations (35.5%). The most common form of the posts was text only (48.7%). Larger numbers of reactions achieved posts with sensitive tone (43.8%), including greetings (29.8%), child’s health description (28.1%) as well as, gratitude in advance (17.0%) and using Lithuanian letters (26.4%). Comments with recommendations to treat children by themselves were three times more common than recommendations to visit physicians (respectively, 36.0% and 10.8%). Also, healthy lifestyle recommendations were three times more prevalent than recommendations for the medication (respectively, 73.6% and 26.4%). Conclusions: Main topics of children ‘s health on Facebook for Lithuanian mothers are injuries, healthcare, gastrointestinal disorders, allergies, skin diseases, nutrition, physical activity, health promotion, nurture. On the posts, mothers were usually asking for personal experiences and recommendations. Posts including sensitive tone, greetings, situation description, and gratitude achieve larger numbers of reactions. Comments most frequently include advice to treat children at home also healthy lifestyle recommendations. |
