Search

Abstract: Scholars across different disciplines use Twitter to promote research and to communicate with society. Most conferences nowadays have their unique hashtag in which participants can communicate in real time. Previous research has reported on conference participants’ use of Twitter, but no such studies are available in the field of mental health nursing. Thus, the explicit aim of the present study was to examine conference participants’ use of Twitter during the 42nd International Mental Health Nursing Conference. Freely‐accessible data were mined via a social media platform under the hashtag #acmhn2016. The total dataset consisted of 1973 tweets, and was analysed with descriptive statistics and a directed content analysis. The results demonstrated that 37% of the tweets were original posts, and 63% were engagements. In total, 184 individual accounts engaged in Twitter during the conference, and 16.4 tweets were posted hourly. Most tweets were categorized as conference/session‐related content, but Twitter was also used for socializing with other participants. The most frequently‐used words mirror a clear connection to a person‐centred approach, and deviate from the biomedical terminology. However, not all of the conference participants engaged on Twitter, and might thereby risk being excluded from this backchannel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psychiatric intensive care units ( PICU) provide care for those with the worst phases of mental illness. What defines a PICU is often decided locally at hospitals. The aim of the present study was to explore and describe a contemporary discourse on how PICU are socially constructed from virtual discussions. An explorative and descriptive study design was applied for this qualitative inquiry using discourse methodology. The data were collected in Twitter's search string and consists of 215 Twitter postings. A framework of social actor representatives that form the discourse was established and presented in three categories: (i) hospital and agencies communicating about PICU; (ii) health-care professionals communicating about PICU; and (iii) service users and relatives communicating about PICU. Hospitals, agencies, and health-care professionals hold great power and responsibility for informing the public about PICU. Transparent and informative tweets could turn the mystery of PICU into more specific, positive portrayals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]