Table 2.
Distribution of included studies according to main uses of social media (N=47).
| Main use and types of social mediaa,b | Number of studies | Studies | ||||||
| Intervention studies | ||||||||
| Promoting behavior change | ||||||||
| Blogs or microblogs | 8 | [18,37,50,54,55,58,72,76] | ||||||
| Discussion forums | 15 | [37,42-44,48,52,56,59,60,63,66,75,79,87,88] | ||||||
| Social networking sites | 8 | [37,41,54,64,72,84,92,93] | ||||||
| Virtual worlds | 3 | [77,82,83] | ||||||
| Professional dietetic education | ||||||||
| Collaborative projects | 1 | [40] | ||||||
| Discussion forums | 2 | [78,80] | ||||||
| Virtual worlds | 1 | [47] | ||||||
| Descriptive studies | ||||||||
| Promoting behavior change | ||||||||
| Blogs or microblogs | 3 | [35,38,86] | ||||||
| Social networking sites | 1 | [39] | ||||||
| Content analysis studies | ||||||||
| Overview of social media content | ||||||||
| Blogs or microblogs | 2 | [49,61] | ||||||
| Expert opinion papers | ||||||||
| Professional dietetic practice | ||||||||
| All social media | 4 | [19,34,36,74] | ||||||
| All social networking sites | 1 | [53] | ||||||
| Content communities | 1 | [73] | ||||||
| Discussion forums | 1 | [81] | ||||||
aAll social networking sites” refers to social networking sites that could be used for dietetic professional networking, such as LinkedIn and Facebook, as described by Graham 2009 [53]; “all social media” refers to all social media platforms (ie, blogs/microblogs, discussion forms, social networking sites, collaborative projects, content communities, and virtual worlds).
bThere was a possibility of multiple social media platforms per study: the Social Mobile Approaches to Reduce weighT (SMART) study. SMART study [51,72] included a social networking site (Facebook) and a blog; the study described in Baghaei 2011 [37] included a study designed social networking site entitled SOcial Families, a blog, and a discussion forum; and the study described in Hales (2014) [54] and Turner-McGrievy (2014) [84] included a social networking site (Facebook) and a microblog (Twitter).