JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Patient medication reviews on social networking sites (SNS) provide valuable insights into the experiences and sentiments of individuals taking specific medications. Understanding the emotional spectrum expressed by patients can shed light on their overall satisfaction with medication treatment. This study aims to explore the emotions expressed by patients taking phosphodiesterase type 5 (PDE5) inhibitors and their impact on sentiment.

Objective:

This study aimed to (1) to identify the distribution of Parrot's six emotions in patient medication reviews across different patient characteristics and PDE5 inhibitors; (2) to determine the relative impact of each emotion on the overall sentiment derived from the language expressed in each patient medication review, while controlling for different patient characteristics and PDE5 inhibitors; and (3) to assess the predictive power of the overall sentiment in explaining patient satisfaction with medication treatment.

Methods:

A dataset of patient medication reviews for sildenafil, vardenafil, and tadalafil was collected from three popular SNS platforms: WebMD, Ask-a-Patient, and Drugs.com. The Parrot's emotion model, which categorizes emotions into six primary classes (surprise, anger, love, joy, sadness, fear), was employed to analyze the emotional content of the reviews. Logistic regression and sentiment analysis techniques were used to examine the distribution of emotions across different patient characteristics and PDE5 inhibitors, and to quantify their contribution to sentiment.

Results:

The analysis included 3,070 patient medication reviews. The most prevalent emotions expressed were joy and sadness, with joy being the most prevalent among positive emotions and sadness among negative emotions. Emotion distributions varied across patient characteristics and PDE5 inhibitors. Regression analysis revealed that joy had the strongest positive impact on sentiment, while sadness had the most negative impact. The sentiment score derived from patient reviews significantly predicted patient satisfaction with medication treatment, explaining 19% of the variance when controlling for patient characteristics and PDE5 inhibitors.

Conclusions:

This study provides valuable insights into the emotional experiences of patients taking PDE5 inhibitors. The findings highlight the importance of emotions in shaping patient sentiment and satisfaction with medication treatment. Understanding these emotional dynamics can aid healthcare providers in better addressing patient needs and improving overall patient care.