| Title |
Online Communication about Depression and Anxiety among Twitter Users with Schizophrenia: Preliminary Findings to Inform a Digital Phenotype Using Social Media
|
|---|---|
| Published in |
Psychiatric Quarterly, January 2018
|
| DOI | 10.1007/s11126-017-9559-y |
| Pubmed ID | |
| Authors |
Yulin Hswen, John A. Naslund, John S. Brownstein, Jared B. Hawkins |
| Abstract |
Digital technologies hold promise for supporting the detection and management of schizophrenia. This exploratory study aimed to generate an initial understanding of whether patterns of communication about depression and anxiety on popular social media among individuals with schizophrenia are consistent with offline representations of the illness. From January to July 2016, posts on Twitter were collected from a sample of Twitter users who self-identify as having a schizophrenia spectrum disorder (n = 203) and a randomly selected sample of control users (n = 173). Frequency and timing of communication about depression and anxiety were compared between groups. In total, the groups posted n = 1,544,122 tweets and users had similar characteristics. Twitter users with schizophrenia showed significantly greater odds of tweeting about depression compared with control users (OR = 2.69; 95% CI 1.76-4.10), and significantly greater odds of tweeting about anxiety compared with control users (OR = 1.81; 95% CI 1.20-2.73). This study offers preliminary insights that Twitter users with schizophrenia may express elevated symptoms of depression and anxiety in their online posts, which is consistent with clinical characteristics of schizophrenia observed in offline settings. Social media platforms could further our understanding of schizophrenia by informing a digital phenotype and may afford new opportunities to support early illness detection. |
X Demographics
The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 8 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 3 | 38% |
| India | 1 | 13% |
| Unknown | 4 | 50% |
Demographic breakdown
| Type | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Members of the public | 4 | 50% |
| Practitioners (doctors, other healthcare professionals) | 2 | 25% |
| Scientists | 2 | 25% |
Mendeley readers
The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 153 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Unknown | 153 | 100% |
Demographic breakdown
| Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Student > Master | 24 | 16% |
| Student > Ph. D. Student | 21 | 14% |
| Student > Doctoral Student | 15 | 10% |
| Student > Bachelor | 15 | 10% |
| Other | 9 | 6% |
| Other | 28 | 18% |
| Unknown | 41 | 27% |
| Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Psychology | 26 | 17% |
| Social Sciences | 16 | 10% |
| Computer Science | 15 | 10% |
| Medicine and Dentistry | 12 | 8% |
| Nursing and Health Professions | 7 | 5% |
| Other | 24 | 16% |
| Unknown | 53 | 35% |
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 32. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 05 August 2020.
All research outputs
#1,061,647
of 23,016,919 outputs
Outputs from Psychiatric Quarterly
#20
of 627 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#27,240
of 443,062 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Psychiatric Quarterly
#1
of 9 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 23,016,919 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 95th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 627 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 11.9. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 96% of its peers.
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We're also able to compare this research output to 9 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has scored higher than all of them