scholarly journals Mental Health Computing via Harvesting Social Media Data

Author(s):  
Jia Jia

Mental health has become a general concern of people nowadays. It is of vital importance to detect and manage mental health issues before they turn into severe problems. Traditional psychological interventions are reliable, but expensive and hysteretic. With the rapid development of social media, people are increasingly sharing their daily lives and interacting with friends online. Via harvesting social media data, we comprehensively study the detection of mental wellness, with two typical mental problems, stress and depression, as specific examples. Initializing with binary user-level detection, we expand our research towards multiple contexts, by considering the trigger and level of mental health problems, and involving different social media platforms of different cultures. We construct several benchmark real-world datasets for analysis and propose a series of multi-modal detection models, whose effectiveness are verified by extensive experiments. We also make in-depth analysis to reveal the underlying online behaviors regarding these mental health issues.

Author(s):  
Sudeep Uprety ◽  
Rajesh Ghimire

This chapter attempts to unfold the trend and nature of mainstream and social media coverage on mental health issues in Nepal through suicide case of Yama Buddha, a popular musician. Using the securitization theory and concepts of threat construction and threat neutralization, major findings through content analysis and key informant interviews reveal reputed mainstream media following cautious route towards threat neutralization and therefore, maintaining a level of journalistic professionalism. However, especially in the other online media, blogs, and other social media, there were sensationalist words and tone used to attract the audience, triggering various sorts of emotional responses, thereby fulfilling the act of securitization. Major recommendations from this chapter include more awareness and understanding about the nature and type of mental health problems; capacity building of journalists and media professionals to better understand and report on mental health problems; development and proper implementation of media guidelines on reporting mental health issues.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gill Brown ◽  
Amy Leigh Rathbone ◽  
Julie Prescott

Purpose The SMILE study (social media as informal support for people with mental illness: an exploratory study) aimed to explore how people with mental health issues use and value social media as a support mechanism. Design/methodology/approach A systematic search of Facebook and Twitter identified groups and pages relating to mental health issues. In total, 203 users over the age of 18 were recruited via Facebook and Twitter. Any user who considered themselves to experience mental health problems could opt to participate and no exclusion criteria were applied. A mixed-methods online survey retrieved demographic and qualitative data by asking users to describe their personal experiences when using social media for mental health support. Findings Users perceive Facebook and Twitter as useful online resources to gain informational and emotional support and to share experiences. The benefits were; ease of access, anonymity and personal control over engagement levels. Users had subjective experiences of engagement, however, overall these were deemed positive. Using Facebook and Twitter for mental health provided users with a sense of connectedness and reduced feelings of isolation. Originality/value The qualitative methodology allowed participants to share their experiences and views, with positive implications for services. Social media was discussed as a prospective tool for raising awareness and reducing stigma. The study highlights the scope for mental health service providers to tap into the social media consumer market and provide quality online support provision.


2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-142
Author(s):  
Drew Simms

BackgroundTransgender youth have been found to be at higher risk of experiencing common mental health problems than their cisgender peers, but there has been little research into the mechanisms of peer support among this group. Research into how young people communicate about self-harm and suicidality on social media has found patterns of behavior in which young people encourage each other's risky and self-injurious actions, but whether this holds true among minority groups such as trans youth has not been established.MethodTwitter biographies were searched to find self-identifying trans people aged 14–18 years. The resulting accounts were searched for key words related to common mental health issues. The tweets caught by the search terms and their replies were coded into themes using a combination of inductive and deductive coding. The occurrence of themes were quantified and analyzed using SPSS 24.Results1,468 tweets were analyzed from 235 accounts; 133 (56.6%) of the accounts with relevant content received no public replies to tweets mentioning mental health issues. Of the 102 (43.4%) that did receive public replies, 64 (62.7%) received a maximum of two replies. Three themes were found in replies to tweets, Support, Feeling the Same Way, and Advice. Most replies were expressions of support, followed by expressions of feeling the same way; advice was rare. There were no incidents of replies that were dismissive of or encouraged self-injurious behavior.DiscussionFindings differ from existing research on how youth interact with each other online with regard to mental health issues: the trans youth in this study were not found to encourage risky and self-injurious behavior in each other. This has implications for caring for trans youth in mental health settings, where social media use is normally discouraged, as its use may be a protective factor for trans youth specifically.


Author(s):  
Sudeep Uprety ◽  
Rajesh Ghimire

This chapter attempts to unfold the trend and nature of mainstream and social media coverage on mental health issues in Nepal through suicide case of Yama Buddha, a popular musician. Using the securitization theory and concepts of threat construction and threat neutralization, major findings through content analysis and key informant interviews reveal reputed mainstream media following cautious route towards threat neutralization and therefore, maintaining a level of journalistic professionalism. However, especially in the other online media, blogs, and other social media, there were sensationalist words and tone used to attract the audience, triggering various sorts of emotional responses, thereby fulfilling the act of securitization. Major recommendations from this chapter include more awareness and understanding about the nature and type of mental health problems; capacity building of journalists and media professionals to better understand and report on mental health problems; development and proper implementation of media guidelines on reporting mental health issues.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nada Alattar ◽  
Anne Felton ◽  
Theodore Stickley

Purpose Stigma associated with mental health problems is widespread in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). Consequently, this may prevent many Saudi people from accessing the mental health-care services and support they need. The purpose of this study is to consider how stigma affects people needing to access mental health services in the KSA. To achieve this aim, this study reviews the knowledge base concerning stigma and mental health in KSA and considers specific further research necessary to increase the knowledge and understanding in this important area. Design/methodology/approach This review examines the relevant literature concerning mental health stigma and related issues in KSA using the Arksey and O'Malley and the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses frameworks. As a scoping review, it has used a systematic approach in literature searching. The results of the search were then thematically analysed and the themes were then discussed in light of the concepts of stigma and mental health. Findings Stigma around mental health impedes access to care, the nature of care and current clinical practice in the KSA. The voices of those with mental health issues in KSA are almost entirely unrepresented in the literature. Originality/value The review identifies that mental health stigma and cultural beliefs about mental health in KSA may act as barriers to accessing services. The voice of mental health service users in KSA remains largely unheard. If public discussion of mental health issues can increase, people’s experiences of accessing services may be improved.


2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (S1) ◽  
pp. S154-S154
Author(s):  
S. Kumar

IntroductionThe modern Swedish crime drama series Wallander by Henning Mankell presents a good portrayal of mental health issues in 21st century post modern world, including the contribution of biological, psychological and social issues in predisposing, perpetuating and maintaining them.AimThe aim of the exploratory synthesis is to study the characters in Wallander focusing on the portrayal of their mental health with a view on formulating biological, psychological and social factors that play a role in their development. Furthermore, mental health is reviewed in first world culture acclimatizing itself to the themes emerging from post-modern globalised world.MethodThe episodes of Wallander (Swedish Version) are reviewed focusing on the characters and the plots for each episode matching them with mental health diagnoses offered in International classification of diseases.DiscussionThe results are collated and a general commentary is offered on the observations and motifs revealed in the portrayal. The focus will be on individual character formulations (both recurring main characters as well other side characters). In addition, there is a commentary on contributing to mental health problems in a post-modern industrial society.Disclosure of interestThe author has not supplied his declaration of competing interest.


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 433-458 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rion Brattig Correia ◽  
Ian B. Wood ◽  
Johan Bollen ◽  
Luis M. Rocha

Social media data have been increasingly used to study biomedical and health-related phenomena. From cohort-level discussions of a condition to population-level analyses of sentiment, social media have provided scientists with unprecedented amounts of data to study human behavior associated with a variety of health conditions and medical treatments. Here we review recent work in mining social media for biomedical, epidemiological, and social phenomena information relevant to the multilevel complexity of human health. We pay particular attention to topics where social media data analysis has shown the most progress, including pharmacovigilance and sentiment analysis, especially for mental health. We also discuss a variety of innovative uses of social media data for health-related applications as well as important limitations of social media data access and use.


Author(s):  
Nanang E. Gunawan ◽  
Tamarine Foreman

This article aims to present a practical conceptual perspective on ecological counseling as a theoretical framework for counselors' integrative cognitive complexity to work with students who experience mental health challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The transition of educational activities into virtual learning has caused various challenges for students worldwide that risk their mental health. Indonesia is one of the countries implementing virtual learning for more than a year with various social, technical, and environmental obstacles. Besides the benefit of distanced learning, this online learning model has widely caused mild to severe anxiety among students. Although researchers have investigated the impacts of virtual learning on mental health problems, the intervention strategies to help students with mental health issues remain lack attention. Ecological counseling has been known for its principles of seeing individuals' mental health issues involving a broader milieu that allows counselors to understand clients according to their contextual living systems. This framework offers a culturally sensitive perspective to help counselors withdraw appropriate and best available information for intervention purposes. This article also includes an application illustration of the ecological counseling framework in the Indonesian community as a practical guideline. It is expected that this article provides academic supports for academics to work with students dealing with their mental health challenges during this pandemic adhere to the counselors' integrative cognitive complexity functions.Keywords: ecological counseling, cognitive complexity, COVID-19 mental health, counselors, Indonesia


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vishal Dey ◽  
Peter Krasniak ◽  
Minh Nguyen ◽  
Clara Lee ◽  
Xia Ning

BACKGROUND A new illness can come to public attention through social media before it is medically defined, formally documented, or systematically studied. One example is a condition known as breast implant illness (BII), which has been extensively discussed on social media, although it is vaguely defined in the medical literature. OBJECTIVE The objective of this study is to construct a data analysis pipeline to understand emerging illnesses using social media data and to apply the pipeline to understand the key attributes of BII. METHODS We constructed a pipeline of social media data analysis using natural language processing and topic modeling. Mentions related to signs, symptoms, diseases, disorders, and medical procedures were extracted from social media data using the clinical Text Analysis and Knowledge Extraction System. We mapped the mentions to standard medical concepts and then summarized these mapped concepts as topics using latent Dirichlet allocation. Finally, we applied this pipeline to understand BII from several BII-dedicated social media sites. RESULTS Our pipeline identified topics related to toxicity, cancer, and mental health issues that were highly associated with BII. Our pipeline also showed that cancers, autoimmune disorders, and mental health problems were emerging concerns associated with breast implants, based on social media discussions. Furthermore, the pipeline identified mentions such as rupture, infection, pain, and fatigue as common self-reported issues among the public, as well as concerns about toxicity from silicone implants. CONCLUSIONS Our study could inspire future studies on the suggested symptoms and factors of BII. Our study provides the first analysis and derived knowledge of BII from social media using natural language processing techniques and demonstrates the potential of using social media information to better understand similar emerging illnesses. CLINICALTRIAL


Author(s):  
Gunnhild Johnsen Hjetland ◽  
Viktor Schønning ◽  
Bodil Elisabeth Valstad Aasan ◽  
Randi Træland Hella ◽  
Jens Christoffer Skogen

The extent of mental health problems among adolescents seems to be on the rise, and this observed trend has often been linked to a coinciding increase in social media use. The goal of the current preliminary study was to investigate how senior high school personnel experience the role of social media in relation to the mental health of their pupils. Two focus group interviews (total n = 11) were completed and analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis, resulting in 4 themes and 11 subthemes. The results illustrate that school personnel experience social media as a tool for communication, but also as a potential cause of mental health issues and reduced academic performance among pupils. The participants called for schools to become better equipped to meet the opportunities and challenges of social media.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document