Abortion misinformation from both medical, nonmedical professionals common on social media
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Key takeaways:
- 37% of Instagram posts in 2022 containing medical information on abortion were deemed to contain misinformation.
- About 20% of posts containing misinformation were from physicians or nonphysician medical professionals.
BALTIMORE — Instagram is being used to distribute accurate and inaccurate medical information about abortion by both medical and nonmedical professionals, researchers reported at the ACOG Annual Clinical & Scientific Meeting.
“We know that misinformation exists on social media, but the sheer amount of misinformation we found in this study was surprising: 37% of the posts we analyzed had recommendations that were inaccurate,” Kaylee Potter, DO, an obstetrician/gynecologist at Advocate Aurora Health System, Milwaukee, told Healio during a poster presentation.
Potter and colleagues aimed to define the rate of medical misinformation related to abortion on Instagram and then evaluate whether that information was being distributed by physicians, other medical professionals or nonmedical professionals.
The researchers analyzed 579 open-source Instagram posts that had more than 250 likes, were posted from January to July 2022 and contained at least one prespecified hashtag surrounding abortion, including:
- #AbortionPill;
- #AbortionFacts; and
- #UnplannedPregnancy.
Ninety-seven percent of posts were from nonmedical professionals, 1.5% were from physicians and 1.5% were from nonphysician medical professionals, according to the results.
The researchers determined that 63.5% of posts contained accurate medical information or recommendations about abortion and 36.5% of posts contained misinformation. Of the posts deemed to contain misinformation, 79% were from nonmedical professionals, 10.5% were from physicians and 10.5% were from nonphysician medical professionals, according to the results.
“Almost 20% of the information that was deemed inaccurate came from people who are representing themselves as being from the medical community,” Potter told Healio. “I think that's important when we talk about how if we're going to going to portray ourselves as having a medical background online that making sure that the information that we're giving patients is accurate, because it does matter, and it's seen.”
Overall, 47.9% of posts took a pro-abortion stance, 34.8% an anti-abortion stance and 17.3% had no stance on abortion. Of the posts determined to contain misinformation, 15.8% were pro-abortion and 84% were anti-abortion, Potter and colleagues reported.
“Studies have shown that patients may be exposed to large amounts of contradictory information on social media and that this may have an impact on their perceptions and behaviors related to their health and health care. Clinicians should be aware that medical information is prevalent on social media and may impact patient counseling and care,” the researchers concluded.
Potter told Healio there are many avenues for further research, including collecting data during different time periods, looking at medical information on abortion on other social media platforms and the effects of medical misinformation on social media on the patient experience. In addition, the posts analyzed were made around the time of the Dobbs decision, so Potter said it would be interesting to see if there are changes in medical information and misinformation about abortion on social media now.