The increased use of WhatsApp® application within a colorectal surgery team

Pith Soh Beh, Suat Chin Ng, Amanda Nikolic, Matija Radojcic, Grace Chew, Nilmini Wickramasinghe and Philip Smart

International Journal of Networking and Virtual Organisations, 2021, vol. 24, issue 2, 200-210

Abstract: The aim of this study was to analyse the volume and pattern of usage, media types and message contents of a smartphone group communication app within an acute surgical unit. WhatsApp® chatgroup history of a colorectal unit from August 2017 till January 2018 was analysed. The messages were categorised into text and multimedia messages, and further classified into groups based on contents, time of transmission and position of sender. 69% (11 of 16) of the participants were aged between 20-29 years old. 5,004 (4,498 clinical, 506 non-clinical) messages were transmitted over six months. 242 (5%) were multimedia messages or photographs. Of the clinical messages, 3,721 (83%) messages were relevant to patient care. There was significant after-hours communication (1,156, 23%). WhatsApp® usage peaked in December (1,555 messages). WhatsApp® meets the communication demands of clinical practice in a surgical unit. Its ability to support multimedia formats has significant advantage over traditional communication tools. Despite data security concerns, its usage had increased over time.

Keywords: smartphone; WhatsApp®; information science; communication; surgical unit. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=114734 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ids:ijnvor:v:24:y:2021:i:2:p:200-210

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in International Journal of Networking and Virtual Organisations from Inderscience Enterprises Ltd
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sarah Parker ().