Breaking Bad News on Social Media

An exploratory study of the utility and consequences of using Social Media to communicate about a person’s admission into a trauma ward.

The admission of a trauma patient is always sudden and unexpected, impacting upon people of all ages; a time when a patient and their significant others experience heightened stress and emotion; potentially compromising decision making ability.

The use of social media to communicate about these experiences by patients, their family’s and friends is becoming an emerging area of intervention for hospital Social Workers who’s work is at the interface between the hospital and the community. The extent of what issues may arise is not yet clear, nor are their clear guidelines around dealing with issues related to the use of Social Media in the hospital setting.

This research will examine the work place experiences of trauma Social Workers to gain their perspective of the motivations behind and consequences of using of Social Media.

An online survey will be conducted to aide recruitment and to get an idea of the range of issues already being faced; semi structured interviews will be conducted to gain a comprehensive, qualitative and thematic understanding of potential issues.