Table. Tweet Characteristics, by Spike, Compared With Full Sample of Tweets, Study of Twitter Messages Related to the Human Papillomavirus Vaccine, August 2014–July 2015a .
| Characteristic | Type of Tweet |
Full Sample of Tweets, August 2014–July 2015 (n = 193,379) | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Health Professional User (n = 851) | Parent Audience (n = 1,043) | Health Professional to Parent Audience (n = 89) | ||
| Spike range, dates | 4/10/15–4/16/15 | 2/1/15–2/7/15 | 1/19–1/25/15 | — |
| Day with most tweets | Monday 4/13/15 | Wednesday 2/4/15 | Thursday 1/22/15 | Wednesday 4/29/15 |
| No. of followers per tweet | ||||
| Mean | 1,015 | 1,501 | 888 | 1,493 |
| Median | 396 | 454 | 395 | 440 |
| Original/retweet, no (%)b | ||||
| Tweet is original | 425 (49.9) | 30 (2.9) | 9 (10.1) | 108,974 (56.4) |
| Tweet is a retweet | 426 (50.1) | 1,013 (97.1) | 80 (89.9) | 84,405 (43.6) |
| Links (URL) per Tweet, no (%)b | ||||
| 0 | 152 (17.9) | 1,035 (99.2) | 73 (82.0) | 55,320 (28.6) |
| 1 | 564 (66.3) | 7 (0.7) | 10 (11.2) | 116,701 (60.4) |
| ≥2 | 135 (15.9) | 1 (0.1) | 6 (6.7) | 21,358 (11.0) |
| Mentions (@) per Tweet, no (%)b | ||||
| 0 | 346 (40.7) | 23 (2.2) | 7 (7.9) | 81,330 (42.1) |
| 1 | 385 (45.2) | 711 (68.2) | 48 (53.9) | 79,653 (41.2) |
| 2 or more | 120 (14.1) | 309 (29.6) | 34 (38.2) | 32,396 (16.7) |
| Hashtags (#) per Tweet, no (%)b | ||||
| 0 | 486 (57.1) | 429 (41.1) | 14 (15.7) | 106,413 (55.0) |
| 1 | 194 (22.8) | 375 (36.0) | 29 (32.6) | 36,892 (19.1) |
| ≥2 | 171 (20.1) | 239 (22.9) | 46 (51.7) | 50,074 (25.9) |
| Spike sentiment, no (%)b | ||||
| Positive | 567 (66.6) | 491 (47.1) | 32 (36.0) | 75,393 (39.0) |
| Negative | 99 (11.6) | 199 (19.1) | 4 (4.5) | 48,940 (25.3) |
| Neutral | 102 (12.0) | 133 (12.8) | 8 (9.0) | 25,110 (13.0) |
| No mention of vaccine | 83 (9.8) | 220 (21.1) | 45 (50.6) | 43,936 (22.7) |
| Spike content, no (%)b | ||||
| Resource/information | 554 (65.1) | 365 (35.0) | 41 (46.1) | 98,484 (50.9) |
| Personal experience/opinion | 290 (34.1) | 625 (59.9) | 46 (51.7) | 91,042 (47.1) |
| Joke or parody | 3 (0.4) | 53 (5.1) | 2 (2.2) | 3,428 (17.7) |
| Other | 4 (0.5) | 0 | 0 | 425 (0.2) |
| Spike vaccine characteristics, no (%)c | ||||
| Side effectsb | 91 (10.7) | 177 (17.0) | 11 (12.4) | 42,989 (22.2) |
| Prevention/protectionb | 302 (35.5) | 125 (12.0) | 5 (5.6) | 36,591 (18.9) |
| Risk/prevalenceb | 88 (10.3) | 183 (17.5) | 14 (15.7) | 21,529 (11.1) |
| Men/boysb | 526 (61.8) | 94 (9.0) | 16 (18.0) | 18,971 (9.8) |
| Women/girlsd | 83 (9.8) | 138 (13.2) | 8 (9.0) | 21,407 (11.1) |
a
To measure significant differences across spikes, we used χ2 tests for categorical variables, analysis of variance for continuous variables, and the Kruskal–Wallis nonparametric test for medians.
b
P < .001.
c
Not mutually exclusive.
d
P = .04.