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-health professionals agree on the need to assist parents and teachers to detect these profiles on social networks

Alicante, 2011-September official institutions, associations of patients, family and health professionals should be involved in social media to detect and combat anorexia and bulimia, whose sick take advantage of the absence of controls to promote these eating disorders, according to experts gathered in meeting health 2.0: new tools applied to medicineorganized by the Valencian agency de Salut, the College of physicians of Alicante and Menarini group.

The number of pages and profiles ‘ pro ana ’ and ‘ pro mia ’ (pro anorexia and bulimia pro) has increased by 450 in recent years, according to the latest Spanish report of the Internet quality Agency (IQUA) in social media. Google appear, in seconds, more than 500,000 pages with this type of content, according to that report. 75% Of users who consult them are minors, and 95 per cent, girls who want to lose weight. The number of these profiles on networks like Facebook and MySpace have increased by 455% in the last 5 years.

One of the possibilities of the 2.0 environment health “ is reporting this type of practice and train parents and professionals in this field ”, assures Javier Blanquer, doctor, Member of the Working Group of clinical management of the Valencian society of family medicine and community (SVMFYC). In his view, “ if health professionals are not entering social networks we lose the opportunity to use them positively ”.

Mental health specialists also intend to intervene in social networks to counter pathological behaviors. However, they reject the way is to remove contents that promote anorexia and bulimia, as proposed this month by the Ministry of health to Twitter. For Francisco Traver, head of the Mental health of the hospital consortium of Castellón, “ the proliferation of this type of space is one of the consequences of the internal democracy of the network ”.

Social networks allowed access to the patient in a more continuous manner and support the therapeutic work, says Dr. Traver, who “ there are colleagues who cite consultation via Twitter, and I have patients that I tracked online ”. However he argues, the face-to-face consultation is never going to be replaced by virtual, at least in his specialty, the psychiatry.

Despite this, the performance of health professionals is limited in many cases by the still little knowledge many social networks, as recognized Miguel Ángel Máñez, expert in health management and economic Assistant in the Department of health Alicante-San Joanwho encourages practitioners to upload to the train of social media to spread their knowledge and guidance to patients. “ Citizen already uses the Internet to find information about diseases and treatments, and the professional should help the patient in these searches, knowing the information that exists on the network. On the other hand, many times is the professional who learns after entering forums and networks of patients ”, concludes.

Nursing may also help patients to follow their treatment or to disassociate themselves from addictive behaviors, according to the nurse Olga Navarro, Director of health classroom projects, and one of the speakers at the meeting. leads a movement on the NET called Tekuidamos from Alicante. It brings together experts from the different groups involved in health stakeholders by social media as a tool to share knowledge and improve professional practice.