Discovery of learning topics in an online social network for health professionals

Online social networking provides support to health professionals' learning and professional development. To understand their learning needs in this context, this study employs topic modelling of postings to an online social network for health professionals to identify the topics of interest. The analysis shows that the health professionals in this network were more interested in discussing nonclinical topics than clinical ones. The non-clinical topics include some controversial topics such as policy-related issues, as well as an interest in the latest news and advanced information in the field. The clinical topics relate to their practices, including sharing practical and experiential knowledge and providing benchmarks.