Digital Epidemiology: Leveraging Social Media for Insight into Epilepsy and Mental Health
It provides insights for targeted support and awareness interventions for individuals with epilepsy and their caregivers, though it is incremental in applying existing methods to new social media data.
This study analyzed 57,000 posts and 533,000 comments from Reddit's r/Epilepsy community to explore experiences of individuals with epilepsy and caregivers, finding that 39.75% of posts indicated severe depression symptoms and highlighting key challenges like driving restrictions and workplace concerns.
Social media platforms, particularly Reddit's r/Epilepsy community, offer a unique perspective into the experiences of individuals with epilepsy (PWE) and their caregivers. This study analyzes 57k posts and 533k comments to explore key themes across demographics such as age, gender, and relationships. Our findings highlight significant discussions on epilepsy-related challenges, including depression (with 39.75\% of posts indicating severe symptoms), driving restrictions, workplace concerns, and pregnancy-related issues in women with epilepsy. We introduce a novel engagement metric, F(P), which incorporates post length, sentiment scores, and readability to quantify community interaction. This analysis underscores the importance of integrated care addressing both neurological and mental health challenges faced by PWE. The insights from this study inform strategies for targeted support and awareness interventions.