Reflecting involves trying to understand why the user is posting misinformation. This allows them to address the misconception if the spread is unintentional, and craft a more compelling response. 

Health Professionals' Steps for Preparing to Correct Misinformation: Reflect

In this step, health professionals find facts and support them with references. 

Health Professionals' Steps for Preparing to Correct Misinformation: Reveal

The relate step involves crafting a message using relatable phrasing. It is important to make their messages understandable, with little jargon. 

Health Professionals' Steps for Preparing to Correct Misinformation: Relate

When crafting corrective messaging, it is important for health professionals to be respectful and professional. Health professionals reported that they are careful to not be too aggressive or to shame the misinformation spreaders.  

Health Professionals' Steps for Preparing to Correct Misinformation: Respect

Based on interviews, health professionals go through four steps when preparing to correct misinformation online. These steps are: 
- Reflect
- Reveal
- Relate
- Respect

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

Examining the author allows health professionals to assess their credibility. They can do this by performing a background check, and looking at previous posts. 

External acts of authentication: examining the author

In examining the content, the health professionals are able to see if the claim in the post is consistent with the existing literature. They compare the claim to known, reputable sources to determine if it is misinformation. 

External acts of authentication: examining the content

When checking the text for cues, health professionals look for aspects of the text itself that could indicate that the information is false This could be grammatical characteristics, such as being overly dramatic, conspiracy-like, or using too much expert jargon to appear more credible. Another clear sign is the absence of a reference to back up the claim. 

Internal acts of authentication: checking the text cues

When evaluating a piece of health information online, health professionals check the topic to see if it is one where misinformation is prevalent. An example of such a topic would be vaccines. 

Internal acts of authentication: checking the topic

When checking the author, health professionals often look for cues about the author's credibility. This can include a "verified" check next to their profile name, or their title (RN, MD) in their profile name. 

Internal acts of authentication: checking the author

Bautista, J. R., Zhang, Y., & Gwizdka, J. (2021). Healthcare professionals’ acts of correcting health misinformation on social media. International Journal of Medical Informatics, 148(104375). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2021.104375

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