An evaluation of the effectiveness of an emergency medicine blog as a method of communication

Álvarez Rodríguez C, Aramburu Vilariño FJ, Fandiño Orgueira JM, Vázquez Lima M, Díez Lindín O, Bugarín González R

Aims and purpose: In 2006, SEMES Galicia approved the creation

of an Emergency Medicine blog considering the more recent

trends in communications. One year later, a study has been

carried out to assess the interest level achieved. A number of

aspects were analysed, such as, among others, the number of visits,

degree of fidelity, dropout rate from the main access page and the relationship

between the number of articles published and the number of

visits.

Material and methods: Descriptive, analytical and correlation studies

were performed for the assessment of the number of visits, fidelity, dropout

rate and geographical distribution of the readership. The relationship

between the number of articles published and the number of visits

to the blog was also examined. The Google Analytics and SPSS 12.0

for Windows software packages were used for the analyses.

Results: The number of visits increased monthly over the year, from

just one page visited in January to 3,800 in December. Spain was the

origin of 93% of the visits, with Galicia occupying the first place (50%).

The degree of fidelity was classed as medium, high or very high in

49% of the visits. When the accessed page was the home page 52%

of the visitors did not drop out and visited several other sections of the

blog. The level of frequentation was clearly related to the number of articles

published (r = 0.9; p<0.01). Conclusions: The interest on this blog has increased throughout the year studied. Most visitors evidenced a high degree of fidelity, repeating visits and accessing several other sections besides the home page. The number of visits was also directly related to the number of articles published. Visits originated all over the world but mainly in Spain (93%). The SEMES Galicia blog is a powerful and non-expensive communications tool.

Aramburu Vilariño FJ, Bugarín González R, Díez Lindín O, Fandiño Orgueira JM, Vázquez Lima M, Álvarez Rodríguez C