Social Media in Minimally Invasive Gynecologic Surgery: What Is #Trending on Instagram?

Abstract Study objective Patients share and obtain health-care related information on social media platforms. We aim to evaluate the authorship and content of, as well as engagement with, gynecological topics posted on Instagram. Design Qualitative and quantitative retrospective content analysis. Setting Instagram. Patients N/A Interventions N/A Measurements and Main Results A query of endometriosis, adenomyosis, fibroids, and hysterectomy yielded 237 hashtags. The top 10 and most recent 20 posts, as determined by Instagram's internal algorithm, were evaluated for ten hashtags with the most posts. The most popular topic was endometriosis. Of 300 posts evaluated, 97.3% were by authored by non-healthcare individuals. The most common content for non-healthcare authored posts was personal experience (30.67%). Educational content accounted for 4.6% posts and had the greatest average engagement by number of “likes”; 0 educational posts were authored by a health-care provider. Conclusion The majority of MIGS related Instagram posts are regarding endometriosis, are authored by patients, and discuss personal experience. Official healthcare presence was lacking.