Twitter analysis of the orthodontic patient experience with braces vs Invisalign.

OBJECTIVE

To examine the orthodontic patient experience having braces compared with Invisalign by means of a large-scale Twitter sentiment analysis.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

A custom data collection program was created that collected tweets containing the words "braces" or "Invisalign" for a period of 5 months. A hierarchal Naïve Bayes sentiment analysis classifier was developed to sort the tweets into five categories: positive, negative, neutral, advertisement, or not applicable. Each category was then analyzed for specific content.

RESULTS

A total of 419,363 tweets applicable to orthodontics were collected. Users posted significantly more positive tweets (61%) than they did negative tweets (39%; P ≤ .0001). There was no significant difference in the distribution of positive and negative sentiment between braces and Invisalign tweets (P = .4189). Positive orthodontics-related tweets often highlighted gratitude for a great smile accompanied with selfies. Negative orthodontic tweets frequently focused on pain.

CONCLUSION

Twitter users expressed more positive than negative sentiment about orthodontic treatment with no significant difference in sentiment between braces and Invisalign tweets.