Abstract

ABSTRACT Background: Social media refer to groups of social networking sites (SNS) that are used by many people to communicate and to share different information. Health-related issues became very popular subjects of discussion on these networks. Aims & Objectives: To describe the health-related uses of SNS among users in Saudi Arabia and to identify the most trusted sources of health information for them.
Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted on the SNS, Twitter, among users in Saudi Arabia.
Results: The study included 816 users, almost two-third of them were women. The majority of users (83.1%) were ≤ 34 years of age. More than 60% of users reported following health-related accounts and 81.4% of them benefited from health information seen on SNS. Almost one-third of users discovered wrong health information. The majority of users (86.4%) trust health information only if from trusted sources and 72.1% of them check the information from other sources. Health-care providers were the most trusted sources of health information. Female gender and those with higher level of education were associated with the health-related use of SNS. Conclusion: The users of SNS in Saudi Arabia are using it for health, and the majority of them supported the use of SNS for health- related activities. Any health intervention should consider the age of users as the majority of them are young.