(Poster 136) Beyond the Hashtags: Evaluating Pelvic Organ Prolapse Content on 'X'

Objectives: Social media has become a major source of health information. We aim to assess the type of information disseminated on the social media platform “X” regarding various types of pelvic organ prolapse and identify the trends among different users.

Methods: A retrospective analysis of posts between January 1, 2019, and December 31, 2024, was performed on the social media platform “X”. To identify the posts relating to pelvic organ prolapse, the following seven terms were selected from the American Urogynecological Society Patient Fact Sheet and used as hashtags: (1) POP (2) uterine prolapse (3) vaginal vault prolapse (4) cystocele (5) urethrocele (6) rectocele (5) enterocele. For each hashtag, the top 9 posts and 30 most recent posts were collected and categorized as advertisement, educational, or personal content. Engagement metrics including views and follower count of post owners were recorded. Posts were also classified based on the author’s self-published credentials into physician, healthcare organization, non-physician healthcare worker, patient, or other. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the distribution of responses across different variables.

Results: Our search yielded 169 posts categorized as such: POP (23%), cystocele (23%), rectocele (23%), enterocele (13%), vaginal vault prolapse (7%), uterine prolapse (5%), and urethrocele (4%). POP and cystocele constituted the most viewed posts (respectively 30% and 25% of total views) followed by uterine prolapse and rectocele (each 16% of total views). The category labeled “other” (healthcare advocates, medical technology companies, research accounts, healthcare media groups, etc.) contributed the most to posts (37%), followed by physicians (36%). Fifty-eight percent of posts made by physicians were for advertisement versus 35% educational. Nonetheless, they remained the group contributing the most to education on the platform, writing 30% of educational posts. Educational content comprised the majority of posts for POP and cystocele, whereas advertising dominated in posts related to other prolapse types. From 2019 to 2024, the percentage of posts made by physicians that were educational were as follows: 83%, 100%, 0%, 31%, 25%, and 32%. Physicians posting educational content had an average of 1583 followers versus an average of 217 followers for physicians posting advertisement. Only 1.8% of total posts constituted personal experiences written by patients.

Conclusions: Over the past five years, physicians have created more advertising posts and fewer educational ones. Consequently, 70% of educational posts were made by non-physicians. As social media is now a key player in how people form healthcare opinions, physicians should strive to be one of the main contributors to the material disseminated. There is a need for increased educational content on prolapses other than cystocele and POP. By educating about POP, conversations can be initiated to encourage diagnosis and support treatment.
Figure 1 legend: Physician 36%, Healthcare Organization 4%, Non-Physician Healthcare Worker 12%, Patient 9%, Other 38%
Figure 2 legend: Advertisement 58%, Educational 37%, Personal 5%