Objective: This study aims to evaluate the pattern of health information seeking from social media and other health technology tools among caregivers for individuals with Alzheimer’s disease and other neurological disorders to identify potential targets for future health technology initiatives.

Background: Recent studies suggest that Internet search engines and digital health information influence patients and reshape patient-doctor interactions. However, further research is needed to investigate the impact of social media and health information technology use among patients and caregivers of neurological conditions.

Method: This study utilized the HINTS national survey 2022 database available at https://hints.cancer.gov/ from the National Cancer Institute. Out of 6500 respondents, 300 individuals who reported that they were a caregiver for a patient with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) or other neurological conditions were enrolled in our analysis. Their responses to questions related to the use of health technology and social media were assessed. SPSS version 29.0 was used for conducting statistical analysis.

Results: Among caregivers, 57% reported using health applications and 56.9% indicated they watched health related videos online, using sites such as Youtube, in the past year. Around 21% of participants engaged with peers regarding similar health-related issues on social media or online forums, while 17% stated they shared their personal health information on social media and 17.4% used social media information for health decision making. Additionally, 31.1% of caregivers disseminate general health information, such as health articles or news; but only 24.6% reported sharing health information data (obtained from smartphones or electronic monitoring devices) with healthcare professionals.

Conclusion: This study reveals the widespread use of social media by caregivers to learn and disseminate health related information among caregivers and illuminates their receptiveness to video-based health information. Furthermore, our findings highlight the underutilization of health technology data sharing between caregivers and healthcare professionals. Future efforts for caregiver education should take advantage of this to spread awareness for health technology on social media and video-based sites, such as Youtube.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/use-of-social-media-and-health-information-technology-among-caregivers-of-alzheimers-disease-and-other-neurological-conditions-secondary-analysis-of-the-2022-health-information-national-tren/