title: A correlation study of social network usage among health care students.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Due to anecdotal concerns about adequacy of health professions students' communication skills, health professions faculty at a private university formed an interprofessional research team. The study was designed to explore whether the use of social networking services (SNS) influenced health care students' written and oral communication skills.
  
  
  METHODS
  One hundred thirty-two students participated in the study. Communication skills were assessed by using assignments from a health care ethics course required of all students. Use of SNS was measured with an information technology questionnaire.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Contrary to expected findings, this exploratory correlation study found no meaningful relationship between the frequency of SNS usage and oral and written communication skills in health professions students.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Future studies of SNS would benefit from a younger and more homogeneous study population to assess the use of SNS for learning versus leisure.
authors.forename: Louise
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Suit
authors.forename: Patricia
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Winkler
authors.forename: Linda
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Campbell
authors.forename: Karen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Pennington
authors.forename: Mary Pat
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: Szutenbach
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Haight
authors.forename: Deborah
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Roybal
authors.forename: Marianne
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: McCollum
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D003142:Communication; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D061108:Social Media / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012944:Social Support; D013336:Students, Health Occupations; D055815:Young Adult