Background/Purpose: Twitter is an increasingly popular platform for discussion and engagement among healthcare professionals. #RheumJC is a Twitter-based international rheumatology journal club which occurs approximately once a month. One novel aspect of #RheumJC has been to include principal authors of the discussed manuscripts, whenever possible. Here we describe participant analysis and survey results from the past 18 months of this initiative with a focus on how the presence of authors has impacted the journal club and participants.

Methods:  A #RheumJC development team was created to help define the structure and moderate the online discussions. Prior to each journal club, principal authors of the selected manuscripts were invited to participate. A total of 10 different online journal clubs were conducted between January 29^th, 2015 and June 2^nd, 2016, each consisting of two “live” one hour chats, as well as a full 24 hrs to allow for asynchronous participation. In 4 of the 10 journal clubs, principal authors of the chosen manuscripts participated in the online discussion. An analysis of all the sessions was performed to assess participant demographics and participation rates. A follow up survey was conducted after the 10^th journal club to both #RheumJC participants as well as the invited authors to assess metrics of satisfaction and identify additional strengths or barriers.

Results:  In total, 433 individuals from 36 different countries participated in at least one #RheumJC session. For the 4 journal clubs during which principal authors were present, compared to sessions without an author present, there were a significantly greater number of participants (46 ± 11.5 vs 26 ± 13.3 respectively, p=0.039) and tweets (462 ± 103.5 vs 306 ± 111.0, p=0.048) suggesting the presence of principal authors was a popular feature. 35 individuals from 11 different countries responded to a survey and indicated they had participated or followed along in at least one journal club session. The majority (88%) indicated they were either satisfied or very satisfied with the #RheumJC initiative. Additionally, 37.5% of respondents indicated that their participation in #RheumJC had influenced practice decision making. When asked which sessions resulted in practice changes, 71% of the responses highlighted sessions where authors were available as discussants. Of interest, 7% of respondents indicated they had joined Twitter solely because of #RheumJC, and another 37% stated that #RheumJC had increased their use of Twitter as a tool for medical education. A survey of the invited authors revealed that they found their experience very rewarding and all of them indicated that they would be highly likely to participate again.

Conclusion: #RheumJC is a novel and popular approach to the traditional medical journal club. The involvement of manuscript authors has proven to be a particularly well received aspect of this initiative. The inclusion of authors in the discussion increases user engagement and possibly can influence practice decision making by journal club participants. We encourage authors to participate in this novel educational activity to potentially broaden the impact of their research.

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ACR Meeting Abstracts - https://acrabstracts.org/abstract/rheumjc-impact-of-invited-authors-on-a-twitter-based-rheumatology-journal-club/