BACKGROUND
Online inquiry platforms, which is where a person can anonymously ask questions, have become an important information source for those who are concerned about social stigma and discrimination that follow mental disorders. Therefore, examining what people inquire about regarding mental disorders would be useful when designing educational programs for communities.
OBJECTIVE
The present study aimed to examine the contents of the queries regarding mental disorders that were posted on online inquiry platforms.
METHODS
A total of 4,714 relevant queries from the two major online inquiry platforms were collected. We computed word frequencies, centralities, and latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) topic modeling.
RESULTS
The words like symptom, hospital and treatment ranked as the most frequently used words, and the word my appeared to have the highest centrality. Results: Four topics exist according to the LDA, which are 1) understanding general symptoms, 2) disability grading system and welfare entitlement, 3) stressful life events, and (4) social adaptation with mental disorders.
CONCLUSIONS
People are interested in practical information concerning mental disorders, such as social benefits, social adaptation, and more general information about the symptoms and the treatments. Our findings suggest that instructions encompassing different scopes of information are needed when developing educational programs.