#Urogyn: What's Trending on Instagram? A Cross-sectional Observational Study.

OBJECTIVE

The aim of the study was to identify the prevalence, authorship, and type of information pertaining to topics in urogynecology on Instagram via hashtag and content analysis.

METHODS

A list of 20 hashtags consisting of common urogynecologic diagnoses, procedures, and lay terms was derived from the American Urogynecologic Society's "Patient Fact Sheets." The top 9 and most recent 30 posts for each hashtag were reviewed for authorship and content type. Content type was divided into the following categories: educational; tagged but unrelated posts; pertinent patient experiences; community building and outreach; advertisements; and humor. Searches were limited to English language posts.

RESULTS

Our search yielded 561,133 posts. The 5 most popular hashtags were pelvic floor (30.6%, n = 171,855), interstitial cystitis (12.8%, n = 71,977), pelvic pain (10.0%, n = 56,505), incontinence (9.3%, n = 52,169), and prolapse (3.9%, n = 21,839). The authorship of the top 9 and most recent 30 posts (n = 537) were as follows: patients (34.6%, n = 186), allied health professionals (29.2%, n = 157), physicians (13.4%, n = 72), and other (22.7%, n = 122). Further authorship and content analysis revealed that allied health professionals authored the most informational posts (45.6%, n = 129) and patients authored the most unrelated (69.4%, n = 43), patient experience (81.7%, n = 125), community building (55.8%, n = 53), and humorous posts (38.5%, n = 10).

CONCLUSIONS

More than 500,000 posts related to urogynecology were identified on Instagram. Most posts were authored by patients and allied health professionals with a small contribution from physicians. Greater physician participation may increase the quantity of educational posts and offer a low-cost platform for networking and connecting with patients and other providers.