EXPLORING PATIENT AND CAREGIVER PERSPECTIVES ON PSYCHOTROPIC MEDICATIONS: A SENTIMENT ANALYSIS OF ONLINE COMMUNITY DISCUSSIONS USING CHATGPT
Authors: Park *Sunyoung , Jeon Dalta 
Published: February 2025

Background

Psychiatric patients often exhibit reduced medication adherence due to a lack of understanding, prejudice, and side effects of psychotropic drugs (Marrero et al., 2020).

Aims & Objectives

This study aims to analyze the emotional valuation of medication by psychiatric patients and their caregivers through posts on internet communities. It seeks to understand the relationship between these sentiments and the medication and its side effects.

Method

Over a three-month period (from October 1, 2023, to December 31, 2023), posts from an internet community site (https://cafe.naver.com/koreanmania) used by psychiatric patients and caregivers were collected. The posts were web-scraped using the Python Selenium package, adhering to ethical web-scraping guidelines (robots. txt). The collected data was preprocessed to filter relevant information and reduce noise. Language and sentiment analysis were performed on the preprocessed data using the ChatGPT 3.5 turbo model. For statistical analysis of the data, particularly to assess the significance of associations between reported side effects and specific medications, the R programming language was employed. The automated analysis results were manually reviewed by psychiatrists, achieving an 88% concordance rate.

Results

A total of 9800 posts were collected, with 2522 specifically discussing medications. Of these, 1449 mentions referred to specific drugs, including aripiprazole (12.7%), quetiapine (7.73%), lithium (6.63%), escitalopram (5.38%), fluoxetine (5.24%), methylphenidate (4.83%), risperidone (4.55%), alprazolam (4.49%), and lorazepam (4.35%). The most commonly reported side effects were weight gain (including increase of appetite, 15.78%), numbness (12.3%), and sleep disturbance (9.11%), with olanzapine (p=0.02), quetiapine (p=0.02), mirtazapine (p=0.04), and lithium (p=0.04) showing significant associations with weight gain.

Discussion & Conclusion

In this study, we examined online posts from psychiatric patients and caregivers, focusing on their experiences and perceptions of psychotropic medications and their side effects. Our analysis revealed that understanding and addressing the most frequent and distressing side effects, such as weight gain (Schwartz et al., 2004), is crucial for enhancing medication adherence in psychiatric patients. This study also underscores the importance of dispelling common misconceptions, further aiding adherence (Kalckreuth et al., 2014; Aref-Adib et al., 2016). Additionally, our use of ChatGPT to analyze and assess sentiments in a variety of real-world contexts highlights its potential as a significant tool for future medical data analysis and application (George et al., 2021).

References

1)AREF-ADIB, G., O'HANLON, P., FULLARTON, K., MORANT, N., SOMMERLAD, A, JOHNSON, S. & OSBORN, D. 2016. A qualitative study of online mental health information seeking behaviour by those with psychosis. BMC psychiatry, 16, 1-10.

2)GEORGE, A., JOHNSON, D., CARENINI, G., ESLAMI, A., NG, R. &PORTALES-CASAMAR, E. 2021. Applications of aspect-based sentiment analysis on psychiatric clinical notes to study suicide in youth. AMIA Summits on Translational science Proceedings, 2021, 229.

3)KALCKREUTH, S., TREFFLICH, F. &RUMMEL-KLUGE, C. 2014. Mental health related Internet use among psychiatric patients: a cross-sectional analysis. BMC psychiatry, 14, 1-11.

4)MARRERO, R. J., FUMERO, A., DE MIGUEL, A. &PENATE, W. 2020. Psychological factors involved in psychopharmacological medication adherence in mental health patients: A systemic review. Patients Education and Counseling, 103, 2116-2131.

5)SCHWARTZ, T. L., NIHALANI, N., JINDAL, S., VIRK, S. &JONES, N. 2004. Psychiatric medication-induced obesity: a review. Obesity Reviews, 5, 115-121.