Medical professionals are reluctant to engage in correcting health rumors circulating on the internet, a study by the University of York has revealed.The authors of the report say medical professionals need to actively take part in correcting online health rumors.

As part of the study, 60 health professionals, including doctors, nurses and medical students, were exposed to eight cancer-related rumors.

The academics looked at two types of medical rumor: wish rumors and dread rumors. Wish rumors project hope while dread rumors are those that project fear.

Social media

The academics wanted to see how medical professionals reacted to these rumors on social media. Would they react in the same way as a lay person or would they be different?

Intention to trust and intention to share were measured using a questionnaire.

The study revealed that medical professionals are more likely to engage with dread rumors than compared with wish rumors, but largely remained passive.

The presence of rumor denials lowered intention to trust, but not intention to share.

Dr Snehasish Banerjee, who carried out the study at the York Management School, University of York, said: “It seems medical professionals are affected by dread rumors in the same way as lay people—even though they have medical knowledge.

“The results reveal that medical professionals don’t trust the rumors and don’t share the denials, they just remain nonchalant.

“It seems they don’t see themselves as valuable contributors on social media, even though they are knowledgeable contributors in the off-line world.

“They don’t appreciate their professional role in debunking health rumors circulating on the internet.”

The authors of the study say healthcare website administrators should be incentivised in correcting health-related online misinformation.

Denials

“Merely bombarding health rumors with rumor denials may not always be effective to stop the internet from becoming a rumor mill,” Dr Banerjee added.

“Primarily, the medical professionals see social media for leisure, they want to disassociate that leisure activity from their professional life.

“We are arguing they don’t have to seek out all the fake news to debunk, but if they come across a rumour they should play their part.”