Associated factors with the academic use of social networks in medical students from 40 cities in Latin America

• Autores: Valladares-Garrido, Mario J., Aveiro, Raul, Jiménez-Peña, Daniela, Ibañez Ugozzoli, Fiorella, Pineda Moreno, Jaime, Alvarez Cabrera, Juan Alcides, Huanca-Mamani, Leyla, Valladares-Garrido, Danai, Mejia, Christian R.
• Formato: artículo
• Fecha de Publicación: 2020
• Institución: Universidad Continental
• Repositorio: CONTINENTAL-Institucional
• Lenguaje: inglés
• OAI Identifier: oai:repositorio.continental.edu.pe:20.500.12394/10144
• Enlace del recurso: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12394/10144
• Nivel de acceso: acceso abierto
• Materia: Redes sociales; Estudiante de medicina; Investigación; http://purl.org/pe-repo/ocde/ford#1.02.02

Aim: To identify the factors associated with the academic use of social networks in medical students from 40 faculties in Latin America. Methods: Analytical, cross-sectional analysis of secondary data in medical students from 40 Latin American cities. A self-administered questionnaire was used to evaluate the academic use of social networks and their association with socio-educational characteristics and training in scientific databases. Mixed effects multilevel generalized linear models (MEGLM) were used to estimate prevalence ratios (PR). Results: Of 11587 participants, 57.7% used social networks academically. The level of advanced English increased 1.33 times the prevalence of academic use of social networks (PR: 1.33, 95% CI: 1.24-1.43, p <0.001) while belonging to more than one academic-scientific extracurricular group decreased 34% said prevalence (PR: 0.66, 95% CI: 0.54-0.81, p <0.001). The training for SciELO and Google Scholar increased 18% (PR: 1.18, CI95%: 1.11-1.25, p <0.001) and 11% (PR: 1.11, CI95%: 1.05-1.18, p <0.001) the prevalence of use of social networks in an academic way, respectively. Conclusion: We can affirm that, more than half of the respondents use social networks in their medical training. Proceeding from seven out of eleven surveyed countries, reporting basic-advanced English level, being trained in SciELO and Google Scholar were positively associated with using social networks academically. On the contrary, coming from a private university, belonging to extracurricular groups and not being able to use Google Scholar was associated negatively.