The results were separated by pregnant (P) and postpartum women (PP). It was observed that the sample consisted of young participants (mean P:31.1 years-old, mean PP:28.1 years-old), predominantly of brown color (P:41.3%, PP:46.7%), single (P:36%, PP:53.3%) and with completed high school education (P:43%, PP:42.7%), indicating a low socioeconomic status.
The social media platforms with the highest number of accounts were WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. The majority of women used their social media every day (P:85.3%, PP:84%). Moreover, many women reported the habit of using their social media to research health-related posts (P:86.7%, PP:88%) (FIGURE 1).
They had used social media many times to research a disease they had (P:68%, PP:73.3%). YouTube was the most chosen social media platform among pregnant and postpartum women as a tool for health research (P:58.7%, PP:49.3%). Most patients stated they checked the sources of information in health-related posts (P:73.3%, PP:74.7%). However, while the majority of pregnant women believed that health posts were generally reliable (57.3%), only 49.3% of postpartum women shared this perception. 49.33% of pregnant women followed their obstetrician-gynecologist, in contrast to 65.33% of postpartum women. Despite this, the majority of patients reported being interested in following these physicians on social media (P:88%, PP:90.7%) (FIGURE 2).
Participants were asked if they were familiar with the terms "urinary incontinence", "fecal incontinence", and "prolapse". "Urinary incontinence" was the term most recognized by patients (P:34.7%, PP:30.7%). Nevertheless, the percentage of patients who recognized any of these terms was low, considering the number of participants with complaints that may be suggestive of PFD. Although 65.3% of pregnant women reported urinary complaints, only 34.7% of them knew the term “urinary incontinence”. Furthermore, few patients claimed to have been diagnosed with urinary incontinence (P:12%, PP:8%), and the distribution of fecal incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse was much lower (FIGURE 3).
Access to social media posts on the topic pelvic floor was also scarce (P:18.7%, PP:22.7%). Despite this, the majority also expressed interest in learning more about a social media page dedicated to this topic (P:65.3%, PP:61.3%). Meanwhile, the importance of physiotherapy for pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum was not known by 54.7% of patients, and most had never seen posts on this topic (P:70.7%, PP:66.7%). The role of physiotherapy in the prevention and treatment of PFD was also relatively unknown (P and PP: 54.7%), and few patients had contact with posts on this topic (P:13.3%, PP:14.7%) (FIGURE 3).