Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston (Naslund); Department of Psychiatry, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Lebanon, New Hampshire (Aschbrenner).
Psychiatr Serv. 2019 Jul 1;70(7):561-568. doi: 10.1176/appi.ps.201800520. Epub 2019 Apr 5.
Social media may afford new opportunities to enhance mental health services; however, privacy risks have received less attention. This study explored privacy risks of using social media for reasons related to mental health from the perspectives of social media users with serious mental illness.
Twitter users who self-identified in their profile as having a serious mental illness participated in an online survey inquiring whether they were ever concerned about risks to their privacy when using social media for anything related to their mental illness. User characteristics were compared between those who were concerned about risks and those who were not. Participants' responses to an open-ended question about privacy risks were analyzed thematically.
Among 90 respondents who self-identified as having schizophrenia spectrum disorders (40%), bipolar disorder (37%), or major depressive disorder (23%), more than one-third (36%) expressed concerns about privacy risks with using social media. Risks were more frequently reported among respondents with a college degree, compared with those without a college degree, and among respondents who were currently working or in school, compared with those who were not currently working. Thematic analysis of participants' responses to the open-ended question yielded four categories of risk: threats to employment, fear of stigma and being judged, impact on personal relationships, and facing hostility or being hurt.
These findings offer preliminary insights about the types of privacy risks that individuals with serious mental illness are concerned about when using social media for their mental health. The findings can inform the safety of future social media interventions.
社交媒体可能为改善心理健康服务提供新的机会，但隐私风险却较少受到关注。本研究从患有严重精神疾病的社交媒体用户的角度探讨了使用社交媒体与心理健康相关的原因所带来的隐私风险。
在自我认同患有严重精神疾病的 Twitter 用户中进行了一项在线调查，询问他们在使用社交媒体处理任何与精神疾病相关的问题时是否曾担心过隐私风险。对有风险意识和无风险意识的用户特征进行了比较。对有关隐私风险的开放式问题的回答进行了主题分析。
在 90 名自我认同患有精神分裂症谱系障碍（40%）、双相情感障碍（37%）或重度抑郁症（23%）的受访者中，超过三分之一（36%）表示在使用社交媒体时担心隐私风险。与没有大学学历的受访者相比，具有大学学历的受访者更频繁地报告风险，与没有工作的受访者相比，目前正在工作或上学的受访者更频繁地报告风险。对参与者对开放式问题的回答进行的主题分析得出了四类风险：对就业的威胁、对污名化和评判的恐惧、对人际关系的影响，以及面临敌意或受到伤害。
这些发现初步揭示了患有严重精神疾病的个体在使用社交媒体治疗其精神健康时所关注的隐私风险类型。这些发现可以为未来社交媒体干预措施的安全性提供信息。
