Why credibility is key for physicians online

Almost all physicians use online resources, according to Elsevier’s latest survey.

The world is connecting online: at the start of 2020, there are an estimated 2.4 billion active users on Facebook, 1 billion on Instagram, 330 million monthly users on Twitter and 500 million members on LinkedIn. But social media isn’t just a place for billions of people to meet, it’s also a source of information – including for medical professionals.

While printed journals and articles are still important sources of information for physicians, they are also looking online. According to the latest physician survey by Elsevier, doctors around the world are logging in more and more to keep up to date with the latest medical advances, and credibility is still the biggest factor when they’re considering a source.

The 2019 survey, Physician Use of Online Resources and Social Media, was the latest in a series of surveys and gathered responses from 1,937 doctors around the world about how – and how often – they use different sources of information online, and how they make decisions about those sources.

The results revealed certain factors that remain unchanged and others that have shifted over time. The most striking findings are that online medical journals are the most popular resources, and that globally, credibility is still the most important factor when choosing a resource, as it has been since 2016.

Fast access to information under time pressure

Online, information is available at the click of a mouse. We can access it directly or through posts on social media, through apps or on websites. Medical information is available across the internet, and doctors have to make decisions about where they look for information and what information they trust to inform their practice.

Some return to sources they know – familiarity of the source is an important driver in France and Germany, for example. The availability of up-to-date information or research was also an important factor in assessing sources online. But globally, source credibility was the most important factor in physicians’ choice of resources – and it has held the top spot since the first survey was conducted in 2016.

As Dr. Ali Valimahomed, M.D., an Interventional Pain Medicine Physician in the US, explained the importance of credibility in an interview for the video series Credibility Matters in Medical Publishing:

“When you read something, you want to make sure it’s gone through the proper stringent scientific and medical rigrum. You want it to be a peer-reviewed article, you want to make sure that their methods and their conclusion are correct, their statistical analyses are accurate. And how I figure this out is by utilizing reputable journals and publication sources.”

Medical journals: trusted and used by physicians

Dr. Valimahomed isn’t the only physician with this opinion: according to the survey, most physicians around the world use online medical journals, which were also the most popular

resources in the 2018 global panel research.

Closely following journals were Google and clinical reference portals as sources of information. Medical societies’ websites and medical apps were used quite frequently, both in 2019 and 2018, and at least 7 out of 10 physicians in all markets say professional conferences and symposia are most important for staying wellinformed about medical developments.

At the other end of the spectrum, pharmaceutical company websites were the least popular source of information – doctors preferred to seek peer-reviewed information from a trusted source. This is one of the reasons many companies choose to provide reprints of medical journal articles in order to promote their brand.

Physicians can face challenges when it comes to medical articles. The biggest is the threat of predatory publishing: there are a noteworthy few companies set up to look like open access publishers, but that actually have no peer review system in place, no quality control and no established presence as a journal, such as through indexing or bibliometrics. These journals can look credible at first glance, so readers, including physicians, need to dig a little deeper to check their reliability.

There are some factors that distinguish credible journals from predatory publishers. Credible articles have an individual identifier called a DOI, and they are published in journals that are established and produced by reputable companies. As Jason Winkler, Executive Publisher at Elsevier, said: 

“When you have a journal that is well established and trusted by the community, particularly those that are under the auspices of a society, that places for the reader an additional layer of trust and credibility in the content they’re reading.”

Several Elsevier surveys about physicians’ use of individual journals reflect this. In 2018, the European Urology Readership Study showed that 98% of users agreed the journal is a source of very useful information, with 96% saying it has an effect on their practice and prescribing habits. Similarly, in 2019, readers of the European Journal of Cancer responded to a survey, sharing that 90% considered it a useful source and 86% said it affected their practice. 

The other challenge around medical journals is access, and one way physicians can read the latest medical research is through company-sponsored reprints. In 2019, Elsevier carried out a survey of physicians about their use of medical reprints. Among respondents, guidelines, article reviews and chapters from medical books were the most popular types of content as sources of information. Five sources emerged as the most useful when prescribing drugs: guidelines, medical journals, clinical trials, medical books and medical congresses.

Social media: a new way to get together

Certain trends emerge with time. For example, in 2019 the physicians surveyed were very interested in online articles as a service, where they can choose their own content. Medical apps are increasingly important sources – about two-thirds of physicians use medical apps globally, and they’re most popular in China (where 94% of physicians use them) and Brazil (85%). Globally, used search engines are becoming more and more prominent – at least 95% of physicians now use the search engine to find medical information every week.

Social media is certainly changing the way physicians find information and behave online. By analyzing conversations online, Lara Meyer, healthcare data strategist at UK-based company CREATION, identified four ways doctors are using social media. One of the four ways is “to curate and share developments in their field” – it is a means of finding and sharing information. The other three behaviors she uncovered were forming communities for shared learning, engaging with patients and educating the public, and shining a light on their everyday lives.

The results of the 2019 Elsevier survey also highlighted the importance of social media for physicians. Many doctors consider social media to be beneficial for their career, with this opinion being most common in China and India (75%) and least in the US (39%). And most use social media to stay up-to-date with news and conferences.

YouTube, WhatsApp and LinkedIn are most popular for professional use, with about 40% saying they use the platforms both personally and professionally, or exclusively professionally. WhatsApp use varies greatly around the world, from 9% in the US to 85% in Brazil, 76% in India and 63% in Italy and Spain. 

Physicians follow a range of accounts on social media, from medical institutions to experts int he field. When they come across medical information, most physicians click on a link to read the article on a different site, and about half search for more information on the topic using a search engine like Google.

Many physicians follow colleagues on social media, and interestingly, about 40% will discuss the information they find with a colleague offline: real-life conversation is still relevant.

The physician surveys Elsevier has conducted over the years have revealed many more interesting trends. Overall, they show that with its rich library of trusted, credible and engaging online content that physicians want and need, Elsevier is in the ideal position to assist pharma and medical device companies in achieving their objectives to help HCPs improve the overall quality of care and enhance patient outcomes.

To explore the multi-channel advertising and reprints options offered by Elsevier, contact us today.

Article written by Lucy Goodchild van Hilten