The Emotional Toll of Inflammatory Bowel Disease: Using Machine Learning to Analyze Online Community Forum Discourse

BackgroundPatients with inflammatory bowel disease are using online community forums (OCFs) to seek emotional support. The impact of OCFs on well-being and their emotional content are unknown.MethodsWe used an unsupervised machine learning algorithm to identify the thematic content of 51,591 public,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Crohn's & colitis 360 2019-07, Vol.1 (2)
Main Authors: Lerrigo, Robert, Coffey, Johnny T R, Kravitz, Joshua L, Jadhav, Priyanka, Nikfarjam, Azadeh, Shah, Nigam H, Jurafsky, Dan, Sinha, Sidhartha R
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:BackgroundPatients with inflammatory bowel disease are using online community forums (OCFs) to seek emotional support. The impact of OCFs on well-being and their emotional content are unknown.MethodsWe used an unsupervised machine learning algorithm to identify the thematic content of 51,591 public, online posts from the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation Community Forum.ResultsWe identified 10,702 (20.8%) posts expressing: gratitude (40%), anxiety/fear (20.8%), empathy (18.2%), anger/frustration (13.4%), hope (13.2%), happiness (10.0%), sadness/depression (5.8%), shame/guilt (2.5%), and/or loneliness (2.5%). A common subtheme was the importance of fostering social support.ConclusionsHigh-throughput, machine learning-directed analysis of OCFs may help identify psychosocial impacts of inflammatory bowel disease on patients and their caregivers.The Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation Community Forum is a positive and supportive online group. People with a new inflammatory bowel disease diagnosis and people who need more support might find it helpful to join this online group.
ISSN:2631-827X
2631-827X
DOI:10.1093/crocol/otz011