Accessibility settings

This paper is in the following e-collection/theme issue:

Peer-to-Peer Support and Online Communities (860) Medicine 2.0: Social Media, Open, Participatory, Collaborative Medicine (2010) Participatory Medicine & E-Patients (911) Consumer & Patient Education and Shared-Decision Making (964) Infodemiology and Infoveillance (1620) eHealth Literacy / Digital Literacy (596) Quality/Credibility of eHealth Information and Trust Issues (687)

Published on in Vol 25 (2023)

Preprints (earlier versions) of this paper are available at https://preprints.jmir.org/preprint/41867, first published .
Hands typing on laptop next to spilled pills and medicine bottle

Communicating Health Literacy on Prescription Medications on Social Media: In-depth Interviews With “Patient Influencers”

Communicating Health Literacy on Prescription Medications on Social Media: In-depth Interviews With “Patient Influencers”

Authors of this article:

Erin Willis1 Author Orcid Image ;   Kate Friedel1 Author Orcid Image ;   Mark Heisten1 Author Orcid Image ;   Melissa Pickett1 Author Orcid Image ;   Amrita Bhowmick2, 3 Author Orcid Image
Article Authors Cited by (43) Tweetations (45) Metrics

Journals

  1. Looi M. Sixty seconds on . . . patient influencers. BMJ 2023:p705 View
  2. Engel E, Gell S, Heiss R, Karsay K. Social media influencers and adolescents’ health: A scoping review of the research field. Social Science & Medicine 2024;340:116387 View
  3. Katona N, Szabó R, Szeberényi A. Determining Marketing and Communication Dimensions of Healthcare Providers in Hungary. Visegrad Journal on Bioeconomy and Sustainable Development 2023;12(2):45 View
  4. Albeshry A, Alshahrani N, Baklola M, Terra M. From Style to Wellness: How Fashion Influencers Are Affecting Healthy Behaviors in Saudi Arabia. Cureus 2024 View
  5. Astărăstoae V, Rogozea L, Leaşu F, Roşca S. Drug Promotions Between Ethics, Regulations, and Financial Interests. American Journal of Therapeutics 2024;31(3):e268 View
  6. Lees E. Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) and medical misinformation: lessons to be learned from the COVID-19 infodemic. Journal of Evidence-Based Healthcare 2024;6:e5444 View
  7. Dhingra V, Keswani S, Sama R, Rafik Noor Mohamed Qureshi M. Social media influencers: a systematic review using PRISMA. Cogent Business & Management 2024;11(1) View
  8. Mor J, Kaur T, Menkes D, Peter E, Grundy Q. Pharmaceutical industry promotional activities on social media: a scoping review. Journal of Pharmaceutical Health Services Research 2024;15(4) View
  9. Ghalavand H, Nabiolahi A. Exploring online health information quality criteria on social media: a mixed method approach. BMC Health Services Research 2024;24(1) View
  10. Merga M. TikTok and digital health literacy: A systematic review. IFLA Journal 2025;51(2):490 View
  11. Flynn M, Lombana-Bermudez A, Palacios A. Latin America’s Digital Media Ecosystem: An Analysis of Prescription Drug Coverage and Diffusion. Journalism and Media 2024;5(4):1786 View
  12. Hennessy M, Fahey T, Larkin J. Commercial influences on patient and public involvement: a renewed call for research and action. Health Promotion International 2024;39(6) View
  13. Kaňková J, Binder A, Matthes J. Helpful or harmful? Navigating the impact of social media influencers’ health advice: insights from health expert content creators. BMC Public Health 2024;24(1) View
  14. Al-Khalifa K, AlSheikh R, Alakloby B, Alharbi H, Alghamdi R, Ali S, Al Dehailan L. Instagram's impact on dental consumers: analyzing toothpaste hashtags. Frontiers in Oral Health 2025;5 View
  15. Li J, Tang L. “I Want to Hold an Umbrella Over You Because I Have Been in the Rain”: Exploring Patient Influencers’ Motivations to Share Eating Disorders Experiences from a Self-Determination Theory Perspective. Health Communication 2025;40(11):2228 View
  16. Wang E. Effects of social media influencer credibility on their followers’ dietary supplement evaluations and purchase intentions. Journal of Marketing Communications 2025:1 View
  17. Lei R, Zhang M, Gui G, Yang D, He L. How perceived risk of recurrence strengthens health management awareness in stroke patients: the chain mediating role of risk fear and health literacy. Frontiers in Public Health 2025;13 View
  18. Li J, Pu Y, Wang N, Tang L. Exploring Emotional Contagion and Reciprocity Between Social Media Influencers and Followers: A Content Analysis of Autobiographic Content About Depression and Comments on Douyin. Mass Communication and Society 2025;28(5):832 View
  19. Ananda A, Putra M, Azhar M. Virtual Influencers, Real Impact: A Narrative Review on Credibility, Generational Trust, and Purchase Intention in Digital Marketing. Sinergi International Journal of Communication Sciences 2025;3(2):99 View
  20. Willis E, Friedel K. Using Pender’s health promotion model to understand patient influencers’ promotion of chronic disease self-management. Journal of Health Psychology 2026;31(1):115 View
  21. Willis E, Friedel K, Delbaere M. Patient Influencers: Understanding Cultural Inclusivity in Health Communication on Social Media. Qualitative Health Research 2025 View
  22. Zhong X, Ma Y, Yu H. Leveraging Promotional Strategies to Enhance Hospital Influence on Social Media: Cross-Sectional Study. Journal of Medical Internet Research 2025;27:e70676 View
  23. Bulboacă Ș, Brătucu G, Ciobanu E, Chițu I, Constantin C, Lixăndroiu R. Uncovering Emotional and Identity-Driven Dimensions of Entertainment Consumption in a Transitional Digital Culture. Behavioral Sciences 2025;15(8):1049 View
  24. Prybutok G, Liu X, Ta A, Prybutok V. Exploring Gender-Specific Nuances in Social Media Health Information Sharing: An Application of the SOR Framework in eHealth Research. Health Communication 2026;41(8):1359 View
  25. Kaňková J, Binder A, Matthes J. It’s True, but Still Harmful: Examining the Effects of Overgeneralized Health Messages by Social Media Influencers Using Two Pre-Registered Experiments. Journal of Health Communication 2025;30(10-12):505 View
  26. Chaves K, Sá L, Costa K, Schmidt T, Suzuki M, Melo E, Rodrigues V, Vieira-Almeida E. Análise das informações sobre medicamentos veiculadas na rede social de farmácias de um município do sul do Tocantins. Cuadernos de Educación y Desarrollo 2025;17(10):e9883 View
  27. Levin T, Tiggemann M, Harriger J, Fardouly J. The influencer effect: Current findings and future directions for research on social media influencers and body image. Body Image 2025;55:102000 View
  28. Santos Paulo S. The social media influencers your patients are turning to before they get to your clinic. BMJ 2025;391:r2501 View
  29. Chung M, Willis E, Applequist J. Unraveling the Ozempic Craze: A Content and Thematic Analysis of Prescription Weight Loss Medication Advertisements on Meta. Journal of Advertising 2026;55(1):25 View
  30. Kaňková J, Matthes J. Think twice, scroll once: Encouraging critical reflection as a shield against health misinformation and overgeneralized messaging by social media influencers. Computers in Human Behavior 2026;177:108896 View
  31. Wang J, Xun J, Zhao F. The theoretical impact of AI-based quality evaluation of short-video health information on public cognition and treatment adherence: a case study of denosumab combined with PD-1/PD-L1 therapy for lung cancer bone metastasis. Frontiers in Public Health 2026;13 View
  32. Mewani A, Basch C, Renne-Glover K, Jones II V, Cordero C, Gutiqi A. Engagement Patterns With #NaturalRemedies on TikTok: Formative Analysis. JMIR Formative Research 2026;10:e83274 View
  33. Ramírez de Arellano Fambuena G, Sapiña García L, Solves Almela J. Autoestima en construcción: jóvenes influencers con enfermedades raras en Instagram. Doxa Comunicación. Revista Interdisciplinar de Estudios de Comunicación y Ciencias Sociales 2026:437 View
  34. Pearson H. Are health influencers making us sick?. Nature 2026;650(8100):28 View
  35. POMERANZ J, HANSON E, MOZAFFARIAN D. Regulating Direct‐to‐Consumer Prescription Drug Advertising in the United States. The Milbank Quarterly 2026;104(1):13 View
  36. Kronthaler S, Kosman E, Tissen-Diabaté T, Mühle E, Weber- Schallauer L, Pross T, Karsten M, Beier K, Hatzler L. Adherence, Acceptability, and Sexual Health Outcomes of the Odeya App–Based Intervention for Sexual Distress in Women With Endometriosis: Randomized Controlled Mixed Methods Trial. Journal of Medical Internet Research 2026;28:e86042 View
  37. Sun H, Chen X, Yuan Y. The integration of artificial intelligence with social Media: opportunities, challenges, and pathways for resource optimization and doctor-patient relationship enhancement in healthcare. Frontiers in Digital Health 2026;8 View
  38. Mehra D, Gupta A, Gupta S, Melewar T, Gee L. Ethics in influencer marketing: a review, synthesis and research directions. International Journal of Advertising 2026:1 View
  39. Xie L, Ding X, Patterson R. “My eating disorder story”: an interpretative phenomenological analysis of social media, narrative identity, and patient influencers in eating disorder recovery. Journal of Eating Disorders 2026;14(1) View
  40. Gell S, Dave S, Willis E, Vitale E, Woloshin S, Heiss R. Prescription Drug Promotion by Social Media Influencers. JAMA Network Open 2026;9(3):e262738 View
  41. Olagoke A, Adebayo C, Folayan M, Oladunni O, Popoola O. Are we missing an opportunity? Willingness of regular social media users to become health promotion influencers. Journal of Communication in Healthcare 2026:1 View

Books/Policy Documents

  1. Yadav B, Patel R, Prajapati B. Artificial Intelligence in Patient Counselling. View

Conference Proceedings

  1. Yuan Y, Wang Z, Zhang X, Luo Y, Lin S, Bai Y, Peng Z. Proceedings of the 2025 International Conference on Human-Engaged Computing. Exploring Community-Powered Conversational Agent for Health Knowledge Acquisition: A Case Study in Colorectal Cancer View