Many nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs) believe social media use has helped their careers, according to a new survey by The Clinical Advisor.

Just under half of respondents (45 percent) said they used social media in a career context, while more than two-thirds (68 percent) reported using it for personal matters. Of those who used it for business, 28 percent told the publication they feel it helps NPs' and PAs' careers, with no respondents thinking it harmed their careers, while 12 percent said it didn't actively help and 13 percent didn't know.

Breaking responses down by specific social networks, LinkedIn was the most commonly used for strictly business purposes (48 percent). It was followed by Google Plus, which 36 percent of respondents used specifically for business purposes, and Facebook, with 26 percent.

Facebook was the social network respondents were most likely to use multiple times a day (20 percent), followed by Google Plus at 9 percent.

Most respondents (42 percent) worked in office settings, according to the survey results, with 18 percent working in standalone clinics, 16 percent were employed by hospitals and 7 percent worked in walk-in or ambulatory clinics. Eighty-eight percent of respondents were women and 70 percent were NPs. 

Social media is a mixed blessing within the healthcare community. Although the networking outlets have many practical applications within the healthcare industry, from marketing to patient satisfaction, they can also negatively affect the industry. For example, this summer, a New York emergency room nurse was fired after posting a photo of a trauma room to Instagram, and the majority of hospital employees are banned from accessing major social media sites at work due to fears of misuse, wasted time and decreased productivity, FierceHealthcare previously reported.

To learn more:
- read the survey results