Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: May 1, 2019
Date Accepted: Aug 14, 2019
Associations between characteristics of online diabetes news and readers’ sentiment: An observational study in the Netherlands
ABSTRACT
Background:
Although experts agree that online health information often contains exaggeration and misrepresentation of science, it is unclear how the readers’ sentiment is associated with message characteristics.
Objective:
To investigate whether characteristics of online diabetes research news are associated with positive and negative sentiments of readers.
Methods:
A retrospective observational study of comments on diabetes research news posted on Facebook Pages, as a function of the innovations’ developmental phase, the intended treatment effect, and the use of strong language to intensify news messages (superlatives). Diabetes research news was investigated, posted between January 2014 and January 2018 on the two largest Dutch diabetes Facebook pages, as well as the provoked comments by readers of those Facebook pages. By manually coding Facebook user comments, three binary outcome variables were created, reflecting the presence of a positive sentiment, a negative sentiment, and the reader stating he or she is hopeful.
Results:
Facebook users made a total of 3710 comments in 173 diabetes research news posts that were eligible for further analyses. As compared to stronger evidence from large human trials, innovations supported by preclinical evidence in animals more frequently provoke both positive sentiments (OR 1.46, 1.07 to 1.99), and statements that the reader is hopeful (OR 1.47, 1.01 to 2.14). Furthermore, news about innovations that may cure diabetes lead to more positive sentiments as compared to symptom relieve (OR 0.31, 0.21 to 0.44), improved blood glucose regulation (OR 0.68, 0.56 to 0.84) and new approaches to prevent diabetes (OR 0.55, 0.37 to 0.84). This study found no evidence for associations between readers’ sentiments and language intensification of the news posts.
Conclusions:
Our finding that sentiments towards diabetes research news on Facebook are most positive when clinical efficacy is not (yet) proven in large patient trials, suggests that news authors and editors, as well as medical professionals, must exercise caution when acting as a conduit for diabetes research news. Clinical Trial: not applicable
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