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The relationship between linguistic expression in blog content and symptoms of depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts: A longitudinal study

Data generated within social media platforms may present a new way to identify individuals who are experiencing mental illness. This study aimed to investigate the associations between linguistic features in individuals’ blog data and their symptoms of depression, generalised anxiety, and suicidal i...

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Autores principales: O’Dea, Bridianne, Boonstra, Tjeerd W., Larsen, Mark E., Nguyen, Thin, Venkatesh, Svetha, Christensen, Helen
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8133457/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34010314
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251787
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author O’Dea, Bridianne
Boonstra, Tjeerd W.
Larsen, Mark E.
Nguyen, Thin
Venkatesh, Svetha
Christensen, Helen
author_facet O’Dea, Bridianne
Boonstra, Tjeerd W.
Larsen, Mark E.
Nguyen, Thin
Venkatesh, Svetha
Christensen, Helen
author_sort O’Dea, Bridianne
collection PubMed
description Data generated within social media platforms may present a new way to identify individuals who are experiencing mental illness. This study aimed to investigate the associations between linguistic features in individuals’ blog data and their symptoms of depression, generalised anxiety, and suicidal ideation. Individuals who blogged were invited to participate in a longitudinal study in which they completed fortnightly symptom scales for depression and anxiety (PHQ-9, GAD-7) for a period of 36 weeks. Blog data published in the same period was also collected, and linguistic features were analysed using the LIWC tool. Bivariate and multivariate analyses were performed to investigate the correlations between the linguistic features and symptoms between subjects. Multivariate regression models were used to predict longitudinal changes in symptoms within subjects. A total of 153 participants consented to the study. The final sample consisted of the 38 participants who completed the required number of symptom scales and generated blog data during the study period. Between-subject analysis revealed that the linguistic features “tentativeness” and “non-fluencies” were significantly correlated with symptoms of depression and anxiety, but not suicidal thoughts. Within-subject analysis showed no robust correlations between linguistic features and changes in symptoms. The findings may provide evidence of a relationship between some linguistic features in social media data and mental health; however, the study was limited by missing data and other important considerations. The findings also suggest that linguistic features observed at the group level may not generalise to, or be useful for, detecting individual symptom change over time.
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spelling pubmed-81334572021-05-27 The relationship between linguistic expression in blog content and symptoms of depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts: A longitudinal study O’Dea, Bridianne Boonstra, Tjeerd W. Larsen, Mark E. Nguyen, Thin Venkatesh, Svetha Christensen, Helen PLoS One Research Article Data generated within social media platforms may present a new way to identify individuals who are experiencing mental illness. This study aimed to investigate the associations between linguistic features in individuals’ blog data and their symptoms of depression, generalised anxiety, and suicidal ideation. Individuals who blogged were invited to participate in a longitudinal study in which they completed fortnightly symptom scales for depression and anxiety (PHQ-9, GAD-7) for a period of 36 weeks. Blog data published in the same period was also collected, and linguistic features were analysed using the LIWC tool. Bivariate and multivariate analyses were performed to investigate the correlations between the linguistic features and symptoms between subjects. Multivariate regression models were used to predict longitudinal changes in symptoms within subjects. A total of 153 participants consented to the study. The final sample consisted of the 38 participants who completed the required number of symptom scales and generated blog data during the study period. Between-subject analysis revealed that the linguistic features “tentativeness” and “non-fluencies” were significantly correlated with symptoms of depression and anxiety, but not suicidal thoughts. Within-subject analysis showed no robust correlations between linguistic features and changes in symptoms. The findings may provide evidence of a relationship between some linguistic features in social media data and mental health; however, the study was limited by missing data and other important considerations. The findings also suggest that linguistic features observed at the group level may not generalise to, or be useful for, detecting individual symptom change over time. Public Library of Science 2021-05-19 /pmc/articles/PMC8133457/ /pubmed/34010314 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251787 Text en © 2021 O’Dea et al 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 author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
O’Dea, Bridianne
Boonstra, Tjeerd W.
Larsen, Mark E.
Nguyen, Thin
Venkatesh, Svetha
Christensen, Helen
The relationship between linguistic expression in blog content and symptoms of depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts: A longitudinal study
title The relationship between linguistic expression in blog content and symptoms of depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts: A longitudinal study
title_full The relationship between linguistic expression in blog content and symptoms of depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts: A longitudinal study
title_fullStr The relationship between linguistic expression in blog content and symptoms of depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts: A longitudinal study
title_full_unstemmed The relationship between linguistic expression in blog content and symptoms of depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts: A longitudinal study
title_short The relationship between linguistic expression in blog content and symptoms of depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts: A longitudinal study
title_sort relationship between linguistic expression in blog content and symptoms of depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts: a longitudinal study
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8133457/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34010314
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251787
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