title: Tweeting links to Cochrane Schizophrenia Group reviews: a randomised controlled trial.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To assess the effects of using health social media on web activity.
  
  
  METHODS
  Individually randomised controlled parallel group superiority trial.
  
  
  METHODS
  Twitter and Weibo.
  
  
  METHODS
  170 Cochrane Schizophrenia Group full reviews with an abstract and plain language summary web page.
  
  
  METHODS
  Three randomly ordered slightly different 140 character or less messages, each containing a short URL to the freely accessible summary page sent on specific times on one single day. This was compared with no messaging.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The primary outcome was web page visits at 1 week. Secondary outcomes were other metrics of web activity at 1 week.
  
  
  RESULTS
  85 reviews were randomised to each of the intervention and control arms. Google Analytics allowed 100% follow-up within 1 week of completion. Intervention and control reviews received a total of 1162 and 449 visits, respectively (IRR 2.7, 95% CI 2.2 to 3.3). Fewer intervention reviews had single page only visits (16% vs 31%, OR 0.41, 0.19 to 0.88) and users spent more time viewing intervention reviews (geometric mean 76 vs 31 s, ratio 2.5, 1.3 to 4.6). Other secondary metrics of web activity all showed strong evidence in favour of the intervention.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Tweeting in this limited area of healthcare increases 'product placement' of evidence with the potential for that to influence care.
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  ISRCTN84658943.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Mental Health, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK.
authors.forename: C E
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Adams
authors.affiliation: Melbourne Neuropsychiatry Centre, Department of Psychiatry, University of Melbourne and Melbourne Health, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
authors.forename: M
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5352-1075
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Jayaram
authors.affiliation: Institute of Mental Health, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK.
authors.forename: A Y M
authors.initials: AY
authors.lastname: Bodart
authors.affiliation: Institute of Mental Health, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sampson
authors.affiliation: Systematic Review Solutions, Yantai, China.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: Nottingham Clinical Trials Unit, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK.
authors.forename: A A
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Montgomery
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D033181:Information Dissemination / Q000379:methods*; D007391:International Cooperation; D020407:Internet / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D007802:Language; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000628:therapy*; D061108:Social Media
keywords: Twitter; randomised controlled trial; social media