Rheumatology on Reddit: A descriptive and sentiment analysis

Abstract

Background

Social-media data are increasingly used in medicine for diverse applications. Although several studies have examined social media in rheumatology, most have focused on individual diseases. To date, no work has systematically explored the full spectrum of rheumatology-specific communities on Reddit, and sentiment analysis has not been broadly applied across these communities. This study addresses that gap by identifying rheumatology-related subreddits, describing their characteristics, and analysing the sentiment of their discussions.

Methods

The Reddit search engine was used to identify candidate subreddits. For each subreddit we collected its name, creation date, subscriber count, public status, and activity since May 2023. We included only active subreddits with >1000 subscribers, a clear rheumatology focus, and data retrievable through Pushshift.io. Descriptive metrics were calculated to characterise the selected communities, and a pre-trained, fine-tuned sentiment-analysis model was applied to classify posts.

Results

Twenty subreddits met the inclusion criteria, with subscriber counts ranging from 2000 (r/Behcets) to 70,000 (r/Fibromyalgia). All communities exhibited near-exponential growth from 2016 to 2017 onward. Analysis of the ten most-commented threads in each subreddit yielded 32 thematic categories; the most frequent were “Patients Like Me”, “Asking for Emotional Support”, “Asking for Demographic Information”, and “COVID-19”. Negative sentiment predominated in subreddits devoted to musculoskeletal disorders of mechanical origin (e.g., costochondritis, back pain) and fibromyalgia. Themes such as “Expressing Hopelessness” and “Asking for Help: Symptom Management” were also associated with higher levels of negativity.

Conclusions

Rheumatology communities use Reddit to discuss health-related issues, suggesting opportunities to enhance patient support and engagement. Study limitations include the demographic skew of Reddit users, reliance on a model trained on Twitter data, and the exclusion of subreddits with fewer than 1000 subscribers, potentially omitting smaller emerging communities.