This poster is only available online and accessible via Twitter – a first for a medical conference
Dr Mark Taubert will be presenting a poster at the EAPC 2016. The poster compares the hashtags #EAPC with #ESMO (European Society for Medical Oncology) over a 2 year period.
- Topic: Communication and information- Access the weblink to this site via Twitter#EAPC2016irl #EAPC2016TOP
- Author(s): Mark Taubert (1), Miriam Rigby (2), Irene Murphy(3), Avril Jackson (4), Sarah Coppock (5), Melanie Findlay (5), Ragnhild Green Helgas (6), Philip Larkin (7), Nicoleta Mitrea (8), James Norris (9), Lukas Radbruch (10)
- Aims: To analyse, quantify and benchmark use of #EAPC2014, #ESMO14, #EAPC2015, #ECC2015 hashtags on Twitter.
- Background: We collected public Twitter data from EAPC congresses in 2014 and 2015 and compared this with similar size European Oncology events (ESMO/ECC). This poster can only be accessed through Twitter on #EAPC2016TOP and #EAPC2016ir
- Institute(s): 1Palliative Medicine, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom, 2Palliative Care, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom, 3Bereavement & Family Support Service, Marymount University Hospice, Cork, Ireland, 4European Association for Palliative Care, Brighton, United Kingdom, 5Palliative Care, Velindre NHS Trust, Cardiff, United Kingdom, 6Palliative Care, European Palliative Care Research Center, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway, 7Palliative Care, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland, 8Palliative Care, Hospice Casa Sperantei, Transylvania University, Brasov, Romania, 9DeadSocial and Social Media Strategist, Digital Legacy Association, United Kingdom, 10Palliativmedizin, University Hospital Bonn, Bonn, Germany
- Methods: An advanced Twitter search using the hashtags described in Aims was conducted by four reviewers independently. Data were collated manually, counted, compared and verified with a third party Twitter analysis tool, Symplur. A timeline was agreed: 7 days prior to start of first day of respective conference, and 7 days after last day of conference. Organizers were approached to ensure that no other hashtags had been circulated, to avoid missing data.
- Results: The results are displayed in table 1 below.
| Official Hashtag for EAPC and European Cancer Conference for 2014/2015 | Original Tweets | Total Tweets (includes original Tweets and Re-Tweets) | Individual Twitter accounts generating total tweets |
| #EAPC2014 | 445 | 2,789 | 621 |
| #ESMO14 | 1,582 | 13,169 | 3,119 |
| #EAPC2015 | 1,417 | 8,947 | 1,740 |
| #ECC2015 | 2,199 | 13,555 | 4,779 |
[Table 1]
Sentiment analysis on Twitter showed that conference attendees made mainly positive comments about events and talks. We further sub-categorized Tweets into ´Status update´, ´Slide/Poster Photo upload´,´Other Photo´ content, to further define how users were interacting.
Conclusions: For EAPC alone between 2014 and 2015, this represents a year on year increase of 218% for original Tweets and 221% for Total Tweets. Compared to a similar size European cancer conference event, there is potential for an increase in numbers. Photo uploads were research slides and posters, publishing these to a vast audience and thus making data freely available to interested non-attenders worldwide. Pharmaceutical companies´ and charities´ Twitter accounts had some of the highest audience reach.
Example of a Tweet from EAPC 2015 (#EAPC2015) Hashtag Search results:
#ESMO14 European Cancer Conference Tweet activity in Graph (Symplur)
Two graphs for ECC2015 European Cancer Conference from 18/09/2015 to 06/10/2015 (Symplur)
Graph 2:
Two EAPC Graphs for 2015 European Palliative Care Conference conference (Symplur)
Graph 2:
Mark will present the data show above in a poster at the European Association for Palliative Care Congress in Dublin between the 9 – 11 June 2016. You can also follow him on Twitter at @MarkTaubert.
