Forty-eight RCTs were conducted, 45 of which were evaluating discussion forums as at least one component of the intervention.
The median start date was in 2006 (range 1997 2011); when studies evaluating discussion forums were excluded, the start date was more recent (median 2008, range 2000 2011).
While diversity exists in terms of the tools used, their intended purposes and the conditions studied, the majority of studies evaluate discussion forums.
Mirroring the findings related to the virtual world, the studies evaluating discussion forums found a dichotomy in that some groups preferred to use the social media tools as a distraction from their illness [ 13, 22], while others valued the ability to connect with others [ 14, 15, 19].
Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (RECIST) [ 13] were used to evaluate treatment response during weekly discussion at our institution.
Quality was evaluated by discussion and consensus after the independent review of each study by two authors (NTH and NTHT).
In order to detect core patterns and comments, we evaluated the discussion for the frequency of themes and the intensity of comments.
Although most of the social media tools evaluated were discussion forums, there was more variety in the health promotion studies in the interventions used than for acute or chronic conditions, including investigations of existing, widely used platforms such as Facebook.
Afterwards, the instructor evaluated the discussions and the answers, and provided feedback accordingly to help the students achieve a clearer and more systematic understanding of the required knowledge and skills.
