Table 4.

Barriers and facilitators related to the use of social media in dietetic practice.

Factors (Gagnon et al taxonomy [31])a				Number of studies in which the factor was mentioned as a facilitator		Number of studies in which the factor was mentioned as a barrier
Factors related to the specific social media
	Design and technical concerns
		Remindersb		3 [38,41,78]		1 [38]
		Visual appearanceb		1 [38]		1 [38]
		Writing styleb		1 [38]		1 [38]
		Accessibilityb		1 [38]
	Characteristics of the innovation
		Relative advantage (usefulness)				1 [35]
		Ease of use/complexity
			General ease of use/complexity of the social media platformb			1 [38]
			Rapid/lengthy access to the social media platformb	1 [38]		2 [66,78]
		Popularity of the social media site or of the authorb		1 [38]
	Legal issues
		Conflict of interest, promotion of commercial productsb				1 [38]
	Validity of the resources
		Scientific quality of the information resources				1 [38]
		Content available (completeness)		1 [38]		1 [38]
		Appropriate for the users (relevance)		1 [38]
	Environmental issues
		General online environmentb				1 [78]
		Computer issuesb				1 [38]
		Access to the Internet/limited access to the Internetb				2 [41,78]
Individual factors or health care professional characteristics (knowledge and attitude)
	Lack of timeb						3 [38,41,61]
Human environment
	Factors associated with social media users
		Social media users/registered dietitian interaction		3 [35,38,41]
		Other factors associated with social media users
			Identification of other social media usersb	1 [41]
			Social media users should log in at the same timeb	1 [78]
			Requirement to respond to other social media users’ postsb	1 [78]
			Social support from other usersb	2 [38,61]

^aThe following modifications were made to the Gagnon et al taxonomy [31] to fit the context of social media in dietetic practice: the term “Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)” was replaced with “social media,” the term “patients” was replaced with “social media users,” and the term “health professional” was replaced with “registered dietitian.”

^bThese new factors did not exist in the Gagnon et al taxonomy [31].