Chan Garrett J, Fung Mark, Warrington Jill, Nowak Sarah A
Departments of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States.
Larner College of Medicine, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, United States.
JMIR Form Res. 2025 Jan 29;9:e55309. doi: 10.2196/55309.
Social media has become a widely used way for people to share opinions about health care and medical topics. Social media data can be leveraged to understand patient concerns and provide insight into why patients may turn to the internet instead of the health care system for health advice.
This study aimed to develop a method to investigate Reddit posts discussing health-related conditions. Our goal was to characterize these topics and identify trends in these social media-based medical discussions.
Using an initial query, we collected 1 year of Reddit posts containing the phrases "get tested" and "get checked." These posts were manually reviewed, and subreddits containing irrelevant posts were excluded from analysis. This selection of posts was manually read by the investigators to categorize posts into topics. A script was developed to automatically assign topics to additional posts based on keywords. Topic and keyword selections were refined based on manual review for more accurate topic assignment. Topic assignment was then performed on the entire 1-year Reddit dataset containing 347,130 posts. Related topics were grouped into broader medical disciplines. Analysis of the topic assignments was then conducted to assess condition and medical topic frequencies in medical condition-focused subreddits and general subreddits.
We created an automated algorithm to assign medical topics to Reddit posts. By iterating through multiple rounds of topic assignment, we improved the accuracy of the algorithm. Ultimately, this algorithm created 82 topics sorted into 17 broader medical disciplines. Of all topics, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), eye disorders, anxiety, and pregnancy had the highest post frequency overall. STIs comprised 7.44% (5876/78,980) of posts, and anxiety comprised 5.43% (4289/78,980) of posts. A total of 34% (28/82) of the topics comprised 80% (63,184/78,980) of all posts. Of the medical disciplines, those with the most posts were psychiatry and mental health; genitourinary and reproductive health; infectious diseases; and endocrinology, nutrition, and metabolism. Psychiatry and mental health comprised 26.6% (21,009/78,980) of posts, and genitourinary and reproductive health comprised 13.6% (10,741/78,980) of posts. Overall, most posts were also classified under these 4 medical disciplines. During analysis, subreddits were also classified as general if they did not focus on a specific health issue and topic-specific if they discussed a specific medical issue. Topics that appeared most frequently in the top 5 in general subreddits included addiction and drug anxiety, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, abuse, and STIs. In topic-specific subreddits, most posts were found to discuss the topic of that subreddit.
Certain health topics and medical disciplines are predominant on Reddit. These include topics such as STIs, eye disorders, anxiety, and pregnancy. Most posts were classified under the medical disciplines of psychiatry and mental health, as well as genitourinary and reproductive health.
社交媒体已成为人们分享有关医疗保健和医学主题观点的广泛使用方式。社交媒体数据可用于了解患者的担忧，并深入了解患者为何可能转向互联网而非医疗保健系统寻求健康建议。
本研究旨在开发一种方法来调查Reddit上讨论健康相关状况的帖子。我们的目标是对这些主题进行特征描述，并识别这些基于社交媒体的医学讨论中的趋势。
通过初始查询，我们收集了1年的Reddit帖子，其中包含短语“接受检测”和“接受检查”。这些帖子经过人工审核，包含无关帖子的子版块被排除在分析之外。研究人员手动阅读这些选定的帖子，将其分类到各个主题中。开发了一个脚本来根据关键词自动为其他帖子分配主题。基于人工审核对主题和关键词选择进行了优化，以实现更准确的主题分配。然后对包含347,130个帖子的整个1年Reddit数据集进行主题分配。相关主题被归为更广泛的医学学科。然后对主题分配进行分析，以评估以医疗状况为重点的子版块和一般子版块中状况和医学主题的频率。
我们创建了一种自动算法来为Reddit帖子分配医学主题。通过多轮主题分配的迭代，我们提高了算法的准确性。最终，该算法创建了82个主题，分为17个更广泛的医学学科。在所有主题中，性传播感染（STIs）、眼部疾病、焦虑和怀孕的帖子频率总体最高。性传播感染占帖子的7.44%（5,876/78,980），焦虑占帖子的5.43%（4,289/78,980）。共有34%（28/82）的主题占所有帖子的80%（63,184/78,980）。在医学学科中，帖子最多的是精神病学和心理健康；泌尿生殖和生殖健康；传染病；以及内分泌学、营养和代谢。精神病学和心理健康占帖子的26.6%（21,009/78,980），泌尿生殖和生殖健康占帖子的13.6%（10,741/78,980）。总体而言，大多数帖子也被归类在这4个医学学科之下。在分析过程中，如果子版块不专注于特定健康问题，则被归类为一般子版块；如果讨论特定医学问题，则为特定主题子版块。在一般子版块中最常出现在前5名的主题包括成瘾和药物焦虑、注意力缺陷/多动障碍、虐待和性传播感染。在特定主题子版块中，发现大多数帖子都在讨论该子版块的主题。
某些健康主题和医学学科在Reddit上占主导地位。这些包括性传播感染、眼部疾病、焦虑和怀孕等主题。大多数帖子被归类在精神病学和心理健康以及泌尿生殖和生殖健康的医学学科之下。
