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Associations Between Affective States and Sexual and Health Status Among Men Who Have Sex With Men in China: Exploratory Study Using Social Media Data

BACKGROUND: Affective states, including sentiment and emotion, are critical determinants of health. However, few studies among men who have sex with men (MSM) have examined sentiment and emotion specifically using real-time social media technologies. Moreover, the explorations on their associations...

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Autores principales: Zheng, Zhi-Wei, Yang, Qing-Ling, Liu, Zhong-Qi, Qiu, Jia-Ling, Gu, Jing, Hao, Yuan-Tao, Song, Chao, Jia, Zhong-Wei, Hao, Chun
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: JMIR Publications 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7053714/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32012054
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/13201
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author Zheng, Zhi-Wei
Yang, Qing-Ling
Liu, Zhong-Qi
Qiu, Jia-Ling
Gu, Jing
Hao, Yuan-Tao
Song, Chao
Jia, Zhong-Wei
Hao, Chun
author_facet Zheng, Zhi-Wei
Yang, Qing-Ling
Liu, Zhong-Qi
Qiu, Jia-Ling
Gu, Jing
Hao, Yuan-Tao
Song, Chao
Jia, Zhong-Wei
Hao, Chun
author_sort Zheng, Zhi-Wei
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Affective states, including sentiment and emotion, are critical determinants of health. However, few studies among men who have sex with men (MSM) have examined sentiment and emotion specifically using real-time social media technologies. Moreover, the explorations on their associations with sexual and health status among MSM are limited. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to understand and examine the associations of affective states with sexual behaviors and health status among MSM using public data from the Blued (Blued International Inc) app. METHODS: A total of 843,745 public postings of 377,610 MSM users located in Guangdong were saved from the Blued app by automatic screen capture. Positive affect, negative affect, sexual behaviors, and health status were measured using the Simplified Chinese Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count. Emotions, including joy, sadness, anger, fear, and disgust, were measured using the Weibo Basic Mood Lexicon. A positive sentiment score and a positive emotion score were also calculated. Univariate and multivariate linear regression models on the basis of a permutation test were used to assess the associations of affective states with sexual behaviors and health status. RESULTS: A total of 5871 active MSM users and their 477,374 postings were finally selected. Both positive affect and positive emotions (eg, joy) peaked between 7 AM and 9 AM. Negative affect and negative emotions (eg, sadness and disgust) peaked between 2 AM and 4 AM. During that time, 25.1% (97/387) of negative postings were related to health and 13.4% (52/387) of negative postings were related to seeking social support. A multivariate analysis showed that the MSM who were more likely to post sexual behaviors were more likely to express positive affect (beta=0.3107; P<.001) and positive emotions (joy: beta=0.027; P<.001), as well as negative emotions (sadness: beta=0.0443; P<.001 and disgust: beta=0.0256; P<.001). They also had a higher positive sentiment score (beta=0.2947; P<.001) and a higher positive emotion score (beta=0.1612; P<.001). The MSM who were more likely to post their health status were more likely to express negative affect (beta=0.8088; P<.001) and negative emotions, including sadness (beta=0.0705; P<.001), anger (beta=0.0058; P<.001), fear (beta=0.0052; P<.001), and disgust (beta=0.3065; P<.001), and less likely to express positive affect (beta=−0.0224; P=.02). In addition, they had a lower positive sentiment score (beta=−0.8306; P<.001) and a lower positive emotion score (beta=−0.3743; P<.001). CONCLUSIONS: The MSM social media community mainly expressed their positive affect in the early morning and negative affect after midnight. Positive affective states were associated with being sexually active, whereas negative affective states were associated with health problems, mostly about mental health. Our finding suggests the potential to deliver different health-related intervention strategies (eg, psychological counseling and safe sex promotion) on a social media app according to the affective states of MSM in real time.
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spelling pubmed-70537142020-03-16 Associations Between Affective States and Sexual and Health Status Among Men Who Have Sex With Men in China: Exploratory Study Using Social Media Data Zheng, Zhi-Wei Yang, Qing-Ling Liu, Zhong-Qi Qiu, Jia-Ling Gu, Jing Hao, Yuan-Tao Song, Chao Jia, Zhong-Wei Hao, Chun J Med Internet Res Original Paper BACKGROUND: Affective states, including sentiment and emotion, are critical determinants of health. However, few studies among men who have sex with men (MSM) have examined sentiment and emotion specifically using real-time social media technologies. Moreover, the explorations on their associations with sexual and health status among MSM are limited. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to understand and examine the associations of affective states with sexual behaviors and health status among MSM using public data from the Blued (Blued International Inc) app. METHODS: A total of 843,745 public postings of 377,610 MSM users located in Guangdong were saved from the Blued app by automatic screen capture. Positive affect, negative affect, sexual behaviors, and health status were measured using the Simplified Chinese Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count. Emotions, including joy, sadness, anger, fear, and disgust, were measured using the Weibo Basic Mood Lexicon. A positive sentiment score and a positive emotion score were also calculated. Univariate and multivariate linear regression models on the basis of a permutation test were used to assess the associations of affective states with sexual behaviors and health status. RESULTS: A total of 5871 active MSM users and their 477,374 postings were finally selected. Both positive affect and positive emotions (eg, joy) peaked between 7 AM and 9 AM. Negative affect and negative emotions (eg, sadness and disgust) peaked between 2 AM and 4 AM. During that time, 25.1% (97/387) of negative postings were related to health and 13.4% (52/387) of negative postings were related to seeking social support. A multivariate analysis showed that the MSM who were more likely to post sexual behaviors were more likely to express positive affect (beta=0.3107; P<.001) and positive emotions (joy: beta=0.027; P<.001), as well as negative emotions (sadness: beta=0.0443; P<.001 and disgust: beta=0.0256; P<.001). They also had a higher positive sentiment score (beta=0.2947; P<.001) and a higher positive emotion score (beta=0.1612; P<.001). The MSM who were more likely to post their health status were more likely to express negative affect (beta=0.8088; P<.001) and negative emotions, including sadness (beta=0.0705; P<.001), anger (beta=0.0058; P<.001), fear (beta=0.0052; P<.001), and disgust (beta=0.3065; P<.001), and less likely to express positive affect (beta=−0.0224; P=.02). In addition, they had a lower positive sentiment score (beta=−0.8306; P<.001) and a lower positive emotion score (beta=−0.3743; P<.001). CONCLUSIONS: The MSM social media community mainly expressed their positive affect in the early morning and negative affect after midnight. Positive affective states were associated with being sexually active, whereas negative affective states were associated with health problems, mostly about mental health. Our finding suggests the potential to deliver different health-related intervention strategies (eg, psychological counseling and safe sex promotion) on a social media app according to the affective states of MSM in real time. JMIR Publications 2020-01-31 /pmc/articles/PMC7053714/ /pubmed/32012054 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/13201 Text en ©Zhi-Wei Zheng, Qing-Ling Yang, Zhong-Qi Liu, Jia-Ling Qiu, Jing Gu, Yuan-Tao Hao, Chao Song, Zhong-Wei Jia, Chun Hao. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (http://www.jmir.org), 31.01.2020. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on http://www.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.
spellingShingle Original Paper
Zheng, Zhi-Wei
Yang, Qing-Ling
Liu, Zhong-Qi
Qiu, Jia-Ling
Gu, Jing
Hao, Yuan-Tao
Song, Chao
Jia, Zhong-Wei
Hao, Chun
Associations Between Affective States and Sexual and Health Status Among Men Who Have Sex With Men in China: Exploratory Study Using Social Media Data
title Associations Between Affective States and Sexual and Health Status Among Men Who Have Sex With Men in China: Exploratory Study Using Social Media Data
title_full Associations Between Affective States and Sexual and Health Status Among Men Who Have Sex With Men in China: Exploratory Study Using Social Media Data
title_fullStr Associations Between Affective States and Sexual and Health Status Among Men Who Have Sex With Men in China: Exploratory Study Using Social Media Data
title_full_unstemmed Associations Between Affective States and Sexual and Health Status Among Men Who Have Sex With Men in China: Exploratory Study Using Social Media Data
title_short Associations Between Affective States and Sexual and Health Status Among Men Who Have Sex With Men in China: Exploratory Study Using Social Media Data
title_sort associations between affective states and sexual and health status among men who have sex with men in china: exploratory study using social media data
topic Original Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7053714/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32012054
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/13201
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