Propagation of Information About Preexposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV Prevention Through Twitter.

Abstract

Previous literature has suggested that examining Twitter messages can be productive for studying how the public shares and spreads health information on social media. Preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is a promising approach to HIV prevention, yet there are many issues that may influence its effective implementation. This study examined social representations of PrEP on Twitter. One thousand four hundred and thirty-five Tweets were collected and 774 English Tweets were content-analyzed to explore propagation of various issues around daily oral PrEP, as well as characteristics of the sources of those Tweets. We also examined how Twitter message content influenced information propagation. Our findings revealed that PrEP-related information on Twitter covered a wide range of issues, and individual users constituted the majority of the Tweet creators among all the sources, including news media, nonprofit and academic groups, and commercial entities. Using Poisson regression, we also found that a Tweet's affective tone was a significant predictor of message propagation frequency. Implications for health practitioners are discussed.