Confidentiality and Conflicts of Interest: An Assessment of Twitter Posts in Gastrointestinal Endoscopy

INTRODUCTION: To evaluate compliance with confidentiality and conflicts of interest (COI) in tweets sharing gastrointestinal (GI) endoscopy videos/images. Methods: Physicians' tweets containing GI endoscopy videos/images were assessed for confidentiality and COI compliance. Results: Identifiable details in tweets included procedure date (17.9%), date of birth (0.8%), and patient's face visible (0.5%). Ninety-five tweets (10%) mentioned the name/brand of a medical device. Of the 19 posted by US physicians, 7 came from physicians who had received payments from the device manufacturer. None of these physicians disclosed relevant COI. DISCUSSION: GI endoscopy tweets describing clinical cases or procedures may insufficiently address issues of confidentiality and COI.

Automated summary

The study found that tweets sharing GI endoscopy videos/images lacked compliance with confidentiality and conflicts of interest. Some physicians did not disclose relevant conflicts of interest, indicating insufficient attention to confidentiality and COI issues in clinical case or procedure descriptions on Twitter.