Srivastava Aseem, Gupta Tanya, Cerezo Alison, Lord Sarah Peregrine Grin, Akhtar Md Shad, Chakraborty Tanmoy
Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology Delhi, New Delhi, India.
Empathy Rocks, Inc. dba mpathic.ai, Bellevue, WA, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2025 Jan 13;20(1):e0316906. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0316906. eCollection 2025.
Online Mental Health Communities (OMHCs), such as Reddit, have witnessed a surge in popularity as go-to platforms for seeking information and support in managing mental health needs. Platforms like Reddit offer immediate interactions with peers, granting users a vital space for seeking mental health assistance. However, the largely unregulated nature of these platforms introduces intricate challenges for both users and society at large. This study explores the factors that drive peer engagement within counseling threads, aiming to enhance our understanding of this critical phenomenon. We introduce BeCOPE, a novel behavior encoded Peer counseling dataset comprising over 10, 118 posts and 58, 279 comments sourced from 21 mental health-specific subreddits. The dataset is annotated using three major fine-grained behavior labels: (a) intent, (b) criticism, and (c) readability, along with the emotion labels. Our analysis indicates the prominence of "self-criticism" as the most prevalent form of criticism expressed by help-seekers, accounting for a significant 43% of interactions. Intriguingly, we observe that individuals who explicitly express their need for help are 18.01% more likely to receive assistance compared to those who present "surveys" or engage in "rants." Furthermore, we highlight the pivotal role of well-articulated problem descriptions, showing that superior readability effectively doubles the likelihood of receiving the sought-after support. Our study emphasizes the essential role of OMHCs in offering personalized guidance and unveils behavior-driven engagement patterns.
在线心理健康社区（OMHCs），如Reddit，已成为寻求心理健康需求信息和支持的热门平台。像Reddit这样的平台提供了与同龄人即时互动的机会，为用户提供了寻求心理健康帮助的重要空间。然而，这些平台基本上不受监管的性质给用户和整个社会带来了复杂的挑战。本研究探讨了在咨询线程中推动同伴参与的因素，旨在加深我们对这一关键现象的理解。我们引入了BeCOPE，这是一个新颖的行为编码同伴咨询数据集，包含来自21个特定心理健康子版块的10,118篇帖子和58,279条评论。该数据集使用三个主要的细粒度行为标签进行注释：（a）意图，（b）批评，以及（c）可读性，同时还有情感标签。我们的分析表明，“自我批评”是求助者表达的最普遍的批评形式，占互动的43%。有趣的是，我们观察到，与那些进行“调查”或“发泄”的人相比，明确表达求助需求的人获得帮助的可能性要高出18.01%。此外，我们强调了清晰阐述问题描述的关键作用，表明较高的可读性有效地使获得所需支持的可能性翻倍。我们的研究强调了在线心理健康社区在提供个性化指导方面的重要作用，并揭示了行为驱动的参与模式。
