Specific critique area

Answer

Explain the purpose of the study. Use the PICO or PICo format to identify the research question.

P (Problem or Patient population): There is increase in the use of social media among the nurses and midwives of Australia and New Zealand (Usher et al. 2014). However, it is still unclear that whether the social media is merely used as a source of entertainment or as a major part of education in health care.

I (Intervention or indicator): Proper use of social media in the health care profession especially among the nurses and the midwives will help to promote their learning process and exchange of knowledge in the health care domain (Echenique et al. 2015). However, there must remain an awareness about the policies and professional standards centering the use of the social media use.

C (Comparison): Use of social media only for the purpose of entertainment in order to check what the people are doing (Nadkarni and Hofmann 2012).

O (Outcome of interest): Social media should not be used for unethical, malevolent or illegal purpose. The use of social media among the nursing profession as a source of education will promote exchange of knowledge but social media cannot be solely use as a principal media of education

Discuss the design used in the research.

The study was carried out among the registered nurses (n = 121), mainly women who have graduated in the year 2009 and 2008. The registered nurses are from Australia and New Zealand. The selected graduate group of nurses was asked to complete an online survey under e-cohort web platform. The analysis of the data was done by descriptive statistics. The data obtained from the open-ended questions were analyzed via thematic analysis. The open-ended questions were deductive in nature.

The social media sites which chosen for the study include, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram and LinkedIn, Google plus, Tumbler, Flickr, About Me, Vimeo. The question that are selected for the study based on the previous research data done over the social media networking and trends in social media use. The research questionnaire has no private questions apart from the personal contact details, which are kept confidential.

Identify and explain sampling and recruitment procedures were in the research.

Sampling was done via targeting the registered nurses and the midwives practicing in Australia and New Zealand. The nurses and the midwives who have graduate in the year of 2008 (40%) and 2009 (60%) are selectively chosen for this study. The majority of the nurses who were included in the study were women amounting to about 96% of the total participants. Of these 96%, 93% were registered nurse, practicing in New Zealand and Australia. The sample was however, thoroughly split with 54% of the nurses or midwives graduating from New Zealand and 46% from Australia. The majority of the nurses, at least 92% of the selected population are currently employed and working as a nurse or midwife. As per the employment status, the majority of them are either fulltime / permanent or part-time / permanent and the rest was temporary. Moreover, majority of then nursing population selected for the study are employed in the public hospital under acute care department.

The research procedure observed a survey method with based on online survey of questionnaire. The online questionnaire was developed based on the themes or the items identified from the previous research on social media use. The study was an e-Cohort study.

Identify and discuss the ethical considerations for this study.

While conducting a research, a research needs to follow basic ethical guidelines under the Data protection Act of 1998. These ethical principles along with guidance help the researcher to conduct the research in a streamlined manner, without any legal hassle (Brinkmann 2014). Moreover, a research which s based on the survey questionnaire needs consent from the participants before performing the survey. The participants who were not interested to take part in the survey should never be forced (Best and Kahn 2016). Moreover, the researcher needs to be aware about the degree of biasness. Proper protection of the collected data is important in order to make the research authentic. On the other hand, the research data obtained must never be used for other purpose, apart from that particular research for which the data has been collected. The researcher also needs to reduce the biasness such that, the chance variance and the standard rate of error can be reduced, making the data authentic (Bryman 2015).

In this research, the contact details of the nurse were stored separately from the entire survey response in order to maintain the confidentiality and anonymity of the survey procedure thus, abiding by the ethical consideration. Prior ethical approval was obtained via the Human Research Ethics committees of the participating universities.

Explain how the data was collected and analyzed.

The Graduated e-cohort Study (GeS) was first implemented on 2008 and was named as survey1. Further, the survey was conducted on the newer group of nurses and midwifery graduates from Australia and New Zealand, until 2014. A proper questionnaire was formed in 2008 and the further questions were modified according to the topic of interview or survey. Finally, as a sub-study of the GeS, five more questions were selected in the end of the survey seven, in the year 2014. At the end of the process, some 155 and 95 questions were sorted from the answers. On this open-ended question, a single participant provided multiple responses. These responses varied in length and impact and all of these responses contributed in the data collection (Tuckett and Turner 2016).

Descriptive statistics was selected to collect data from question 1, 2 and 5 and from the open-ended question 3 and 4 the data was subjected to thematic analysis. This is a qualitative analysis process in the research and used to emphasizing pinpointing and examining the recorded patterns (Joffe 2012). Hence, the primary theme for data analysis was already provided and the data was judged based on that theme. Different pieces of data responses were assigned with a code so that they can reflect the theme, which is inductive (Kolaczyk and Csárdi 2014). The prime aim of the analysis was derive sub-themes inductively that is visible in the core data. Data assigned to the codes were combined and read by the authors observing for similarities and changes in what was shared by the defendants. A consensus in the analyzed data was reached as the researchers jointly decided the sub-themes and the illustrative quotes, used in the communication of the data.

Briefly summarise the results of this study

According to the finding of Tuckett and Turner (2016), out of the total 121 respondents, 112 that is 96 percent provided complete analyzed data. Each of the survey questions were copies one-by-one in a line and all the responses were collected beside the question only. Question 1, do you use social media got total 112 responses and within that 93 person responded as they do. The frequency of using social media was not collected. The form of social media used by them was not cleared hence, 97 percent 112 selected Facebook as their social media and the others used YouTube (46 percent), Pinterest and Instagram (42 and 36 percent respectively. Very few of the nurses and midwifes used Flickr, twitter, Tumblr, vimeo, google plus and LinkedIn.  Further, the result of this social media usage result was more as the data of the open-ended questions 3 and 4 were very shocking. The nurses accepted that they used social media just to see what other people are sharing. The percentage of such nurses were 95 percent, 27 percent used this social media for education and 18 percent were using it for the entertainment purpose. The response of open-ended question 4, codes and ethical laws about using social media ethically, was positive and nearly 75 percent of the people knew about the rules and regulations of social media usage (Tuckett and Turner 2016).

Discuss implications for health professionals practice.

The research discusses about the uptake pattern of new midwifes and nurses of Australia and New Zealand in a point of time (Tess 2013). This research article also describes about the awareness and knowledge of these participants in the research procedure. The Australian college of nursing (ACN) introduces the drive of usage of social media to strengthen the mechanism of nursing and midwifery. However, the findings from the research describes that he nurses and midwifes used the social media to connect with other people rather than for education and learning. The goal set by ACN was limited and could only be achieved through YouTube, Facebook Instagram and Pinterest (Bottorff et al. 2014).

There are a symbolic relationship between the social media like Facebook and YouTube and their respective usage and purpose of usage in general life. The nurses participating in the assessment were not asked about the topics for which they use the social media, however, they were asked about the purpose and they had to select from a bunch of options like socialite, entertainment, education, knowledge and so on. In this scenario, nearly 97 percent users accepted their purpose as Socialite and entertainment.

Majority of the nurses and midwifery person responded as a user of social media and the percentage of these professional is higher than any other professionals. The percentage is 93 percent in nurses and midwifery and 60 to 70 percent in other professionals (Jean Barry 2012). Most of the nurses in Australia and New Zealand spread the awareness of usage of social media and rules and regulations regarding it. Hence, it was recommended that the work done by the particular profession indicate to the implications of use of social media and everyone’s knowledge about the usage of these platforms.