Journal of Gastrointestinal & Digestive System
Open Access

Mini Review

Rationale for Using Social Media to Collect Patient-Reported Outcomes in Patients with Celiac Disease

Park KT^1,2*, Merissa Harris³, Nasim Khavari¹ and Chaitan Khosla⁴

¹Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition, Department of Pediatrics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA

²Center for Health Policy/Primary Care Outcomes Research, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

³School of Medicine, George Washington University, District of Columbia, USA

⁴Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

*Corresponding Author:

ParK KT
750 Welch Road, Ste 116
Palo Alto, CA 94304, USA
Tel: 650-723-5070
E-mail: ktpark@stanford.edu

Received date: December 07, 2013; Accepted date: January 27, 2014; Published date: February 06, 2014

Citation: Park KT, Harris M, Khavari N, Khosla C (2014) Rationale for Using Social Media to Collect Patient-Reported Outcomes in Patients with Celiac Disease. J Gastroint Dig Syst 4:166. doi:10.4172/2161-069X.1000166

Copyright: © 2014 Park KT, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Patients with celiac disease (CD) are increasingly interconnected through social media, exchanging patient experiences and health-tracking information between individuals through various web-based platforms. Social media represents potentially unique communication interface between gastroenterologists and active social media users – especially young adults and adolescents with celiac disease-regarding adherence to the strict gluten-free diet, gastrointestinal symptoms, and meaningful discussion about disease management. Yet, various social media platforms may be underutilized for research purposes to collect patient-reported outcomes data. In this commentary, we summarize the scientific rationale and potential for future growth of social media in patient-reported outcomes research, focusing on college freshmen with celiac disease as a case study and provide overview of the methodological approach. Finally, we discuss how social media may impact patient care in the future through increasing mobile technology use.

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