Social media, including microblogs (e.g. Twitter), social networking sites (e.g. Facebook, Patients like Me), and media sharing sites (e.g. YouTube) are influential in our everyday life. Today’s, social media is considered a cultural phenomenon in all over the world (1). Studies revealed the majority of the U.S. adult internet users (75%) use social media (2); meanwhile, this figure is about 80 percent among young people in European Union countries (3). Healthcare provision has been affected by social media, so that different platforms for social media have been applied in various domains such as medical education, patient education, facilitating interaction between customers and healthcare providers, collaboration among health care teams, provision of consultative and curative/therapeutic forums, knowledge sharing and health campaigns (4). Furthermore, social media enable healthcare providers and policy makers to communicate any health issues with the public and to answer health questions. Social media facilitate patient-patient dialogue to gain perceptions and experiences from each other. Additionally, more objectives, including health education, health promotion and stigma reduction are achievable (5). In this regard, many healthcare organizations have developed such media to communicate with the public.
Researchers identified many advantages for the application of social media in health care. The major advantages consist of a better relationship between patients, providers and even health policy makers, social support, self-care, the ability to access to more information, information sharing, a greater accessibility to health information commensurate with users’ needs, application of social media for public health surveillance and their positive influence on health policy making (5, 6).