Cargando…

Emotional Word Use in Informal Carers of People Living With Dementia: Linguistic Analysis of Online Discussion Forums

BACKGROUND: Informal dementia care is uniquely stressful and necessitates effective methods of identifying and understanding the needs of potentially at-risk carers so that they can be supported and sustained in their roles. One such method is examining carers’ engagement in online support platforms...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Donnellan, Warren James, Warren, Jasmine Grace
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: JMIR Publications 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9250063/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35713942
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/32603
_version_ 1784739727531835392
author Donnellan, Warren James
Warren, Jasmine Grace
author_facet Donnellan, Warren James
Warren, Jasmine Grace
author_sort Donnellan, Warren James
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Informal dementia care is uniquely stressful and necessitates effective methods of identifying and understanding the needs of potentially at-risk carers so that they can be supported and sustained in their roles. One such method is examining carers’ engagement in online support platforms. Research has explored emotional word use on online discussion forums as a proxy for underlying emotional functioning. We are not aware of any research that has analyzed the content of posts on discussion forums specific to carers of people living with dementia in order to examine their emotional states. OBJECTIVE: We addressed the following research questions: (1) To what extent does emotional language use differ between carers of people living with dementia and noncarers? (2) To what extent does emotional language use differ between spousal and parental carers? (3) To what extent does emotional language use differ between current and former carers? METHODS: We used the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) program to examine emotional word use on a UK-based online forum for informal carers of people living with dementia and a discussion forum control group. Carers were separated into different subgroups for the analysis: current and former, and spousal and parental. RESULTS: We found that carers of people living with dementia used significantly more negative, but not positive, emotion words than noncarers. Spousal carers used more emotion words overall than parental carers, specifically more negative emotion words. Former carers used more emotional words overall than current carers, specifically more positive words. CONCLUSIONS: The findings suggest that informal carers of people living with dementia may be at increased risk of negative emotional states relative to noncarers. Greater negativity in spousal carers may be explained by increased caregiver burden, whereas greater positivity in former carers may be explained by functional relief of caregiving responsibilities. The theoretical/applied relevance of these findings is discussed.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-9250063
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2022
publisher JMIR Publications
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-92500632022-07-03 Emotional Word Use in Informal Carers of People Living With Dementia: Linguistic Analysis of Online Discussion Forums Donnellan, Warren James Warren, Jasmine Grace JMIR Aging Original Paper BACKGROUND: Informal dementia care is uniquely stressful and necessitates effective methods of identifying and understanding the needs of potentially at-risk carers so that they can be supported and sustained in their roles. One such method is examining carers’ engagement in online support platforms. Research has explored emotional word use on online discussion forums as a proxy for underlying emotional functioning. We are not aware of any research that has analyzed the content of posts on discussion forums specific to carers of people living with dementia in order to examine their emotional states. OBJECTIVE: We addressed the following research questions: (1) To what extent does emotional language use differ between carers of people living with dementia and noncarers? (2) To what extent does emotional language use differ between spousal and parental carers? (3) To what extent does emotional language use differ between current and former carers? METHODS: We used the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) program to examine emotional word use on a UK-based online forum for informal carers of people living with dementia and a discussion forum control group. Carers were separated into different subgroups for the analysis: current and former, and spousal and parental. RESULTS: We found that carers of people living with dementia used significantly more negative, but not positive, emotion words than noncarers. Spousal carers used more emotion words overall than parental carers, specifically more negative emotion words. Former carers used more emotional words overall than current carers, specifically more positive words. CONCLUSIONS: The findings suggest that informal carers of people living with dementia may be at increased risk of negative emotional states relative to noncarers. Greater negativity in spousal carers may be explained by increased caregiver burden, whereas greater positivity in former carers may be explained by functional relief of caregiving responsibilities. The theoretical/applied relevance of these findings is discussed. JMIR Publications 2022-06-17 /pmc/articles/PMC9250063/ /pubmed/35713942 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/32603 Text en ©Warren James Donnellan, Jasmine Grace Warren. Originally published in JMIR Aging (https://aging.jmir.org), 17.06.2022. 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 JMIR Aging, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on https://aging.jmir.org, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.
spellingShingle Original Paper
Donnellan, Warren James
Warren, Jasmine Grace
Emotional Word Use in Informal Carers of People Living With Dementia: Linguistic Analysis of Online Discussion Forums
title Emotional Word Use in Informal Carers of People Living With Dementia: Linguistic Analysis of Online Discussion Forums
title_full Emotional Word Use in Informal Carers of People Living With Dementia: Linguistic Analysis of Online Discussion Forums
title_fullStr Emotional Word Use in Informal Carers of People Living With Dementia: Linguistic Analysis of Online Discussion Forums
title_full_unstemmed Emotional Word Use in Informal Carers of People Living With Dementia: Linguistic Analysis of Online Discussion Forums
title_short Emotional Word Use in Informal Carers of People Living With Dementia: Linguistic Analysis of Online Discussion Forums
title_sort emotional word use in informal carers of people living with dementia: linguistic analysis of online discussion forums
topic Original Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9250063/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35713942
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/32603
work_keys_str_mv AT donnellanwarrenjames emotionalworduseininformalcarersofpeoplelivingwithdementialinguisticanalysisofonlinediscussionforums
AT warrenjasminegrace emotionalworduseininformalcarersofpeoplelivingwithdementialinguisticanalysisofonlinediscussionforums