One in 4 doctors experience hostility on social media

A survey reveals that rape and death threats were among abusive messages sent to doctors on social media, while 1 in 6 female respondents reported receiving sexually harassing messages.The researchers behind the survey, which appears in JAMA Internal Medicine, have called on medical institutions to put plans in place to deal with online harassment of healthcare providers.They conducted the survey via Twitter in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.“If anything, our data is likely an underestimate of the true extent of attacks and harassment post-pandemic, since so many doctors started to advocate for public health measures during the pandemic and been met with an increasingly polarized populace emboldened by leadership that devalues science and fact,” says senior author Vineet Arora, assistant dean for scholarship and discovery at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, IL.“Doctors and other healthcare workers are already facing unprecedented stress and mental health challenges from their work […] Any stress from being online will compound that and put them at risk, especially as doctors are being asked to be more vocal on social media to promote vaccination and more.”– Vineet AroraThe authors believe this is the first study to address physicians’ experience of online harassment.They sent the survey to participants via traceable links posted on Twitter.