scholarly journals Digital Support for Renal Patients Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Examining the Efforts of Singapore Social Service Agencies in Facebook

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Junjie Tan ◽  
Aravind Sesagiri Raamkumar ◽  
Hwee Lin Wee
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Support Groups ◽  
Social Service ◽  
Classification Scheme ◽  
Psychosocial Support ◽  
Lifestyle Changes ◽  
Social Service Agencies ◽  
Kidney Dialysis ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Service Agencies

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.

Digital Support for Renal Patients through Facebook: Examining the Efforts of Singapore Social Service Agencies during the COVID-19 Pandemic (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Junjie Tan ◽  
Aravind Sesagiri Raamkumar ◽  
Hwee Lin Wee
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Service ◽  
Psychosocial Support ◽  
Lifestyle Changes ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Social Service Agencies ◽  
Kidney Dialysis ◽  
P Content ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Service Agencies

BACKGROUND 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. OBJECTIVE Content analysis of the SSAs’ Facebook posts can provide insights on whether Facebook has been well-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. METHODS Facebook posts of the National Kidney Foundation (NKF), Kidney Dialysis Foundation (KDF), and Muslim Kidney Action Association (MKAC), made 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. RESULTS Analysis 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, the proportion of posts about community-based events and psychosocial support decreased. CONCLUSIONS Facebook was found to be well-utilized by renal SSAs in engaging their beneficiaries during the pandemic. In future pandemics, Renal SSAs should place emphasis on posts related to psychosocial support and encouraging kindness.

scholarly journals Impact of COVID-19 on the outreach strategy of cancer social service agencies in Singapore: A pre-post analysis with Facebook data

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kieran Ethan Tan ◽  
Aravind Sesagiri Raamkumar ◽  
Hwee Lin Wee
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Service ◽  
Scale Up ◽  
Support Service ◽  
Cancer Society ◽  
Social Service Agencies ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Media Platform ◽  
Novel Coronavirus ◽  
Service Agencies

AbstractThe 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 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 specifically developed for this study. 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.

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