Addressing Cyberbullying in Healthcare: Causes, Consequences, and Policy Reforms - A Theory-Driven Approach

Study Background: Illustrative Cases

Modern digital platforms of communications have created highways of data sharing traffic in the virtual world. The pace and volume of information has magnified the casualties on the data-sharing highway. During the pre-digital era, information was circulated through physical word-of mouth, or later on, through somewhat regulated print or electronic media. Today, a single tweet or Instagram post can have an outreach of millions of individuals throughout the world, within a flash a second, simultaneously attracting responses from multiple stakeholders. These responses are also viewable to the general public, and the responses to these vary according to the aspirations, knowledge, and experiences of the audience. These responses, either supportive, or opposing intensify and gather velocity and torque, just as a rolling snowball gathers strength. The negative comments of the audience could intensify to the extent of intimidating and harassing the originator of the content, resulting in cyberbullying cases.

A few cases of cyberbullying which the professionals in the medical sector faced during the current era have been presented below. The aim is to identify the common causes of cyberbullying, the consequences and policy reforms to overcome this threat.

The four cases identified where a health care professional faced cyberbullying due to either comments made on social media, or the sharing of information of the patient. Initially, the various stakeholders have been identified which were somehow influenced themselves or were identified to be involved in the process. The common stakeholder in all cases is, ofcoruse, the health care professional, I.e. the doctor. The other stakeholders identified in the first case are the social media activists, the general public the social media agencies which somehow had a role in the escalation of the situation, or as discussed later, could have played a role in not letting the case go out of hand. The next two cases highlight the lack of legal structure, which it was in place, could have prevented the escalation of the situation. Lastly, the role of hospital authorities is identified to be critical in creating a culture of tolerance among the stakeholders, creating SOPs to secure data of patients and provide platforms to avoid catastrophes on social media in the health care sector.