Tag: Twitter

Reading of the Week: Twitter & Suicide – the New ANZJP Paper; Also, Crystal Meth Use (Quick Takes) and Patients and Physicians’ Names (JAMA Net Open)

October 20, 2022 /

From the Editor

More and more, people use social media to debate current events, share personal experiences, and maybe enjoy a cat video or two. But if people are disclosing much, are they discussing suicidal thoughts? Could certain social media posts encourage people to get help?

In the first selection, Dr. Thomas Niederkrotenthaler (of the Medical University of Vienna) and his co-authors attempt to answer these questions with a new paper just published in the Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry. Drawing on more than 7.15 million tweets (from Twitter) and employing a machine learning approach, they divide content into several categories, then review volumes of calls to a suicide hotline and completed suicides. “This is the first large-scale study to suggest that daily volume of specific suicide-prevention-related social media content on Twitter corresponds to higher daily levels of help-seeking behaviour and lower daily number of suicide deaths.” We mull the paper and its implications.

Social media: more than cat videos?

In this week’s second selection, we consider a new Quick Takes podcast interview with Dr. David Castle (of the University of Toronto). Dr. Castle discusses crystal methamphetamine, a drug used more and more in Canada. Drawing on his Australian experience and noting the rise in use here, he comments: “it’s highly prevalent, highly available, highly pure and highly destructive.”

Finally, in the third selection, Dr. Jamison A. Harvey (of the Mayo Clinic) and her co-authors take a look at communication between patients and their physicians. Drawing on nearly 30,000 email messages, they consider the way patients address their physicians in a new JAMA Network Open research letter. “This is the first study to objectively identify patterns of addressing physicians through electronic messaging and may reveal potential bias. We found that women physicians… and primary care physicians were addressed by their first name more frequently.”

DG

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Reading of the Week: Tweets for a Good Cause, But Suicide Prevention? Also, Racism in Mental Health (QT), and Rap & Awareness (JAMA Peds)

March 11, 2021 /

From the Editor

It’s an incredible campaign. With each passing year, Bell Let’s Talk Day gains more recognition, with many, including the Prime Minister, tweeting for a good cause.

But does the campaign affect suicide? In the first selection, we look at new paper from The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry. David Côté (of the University of Toronto) and his co-authors study the tweet contents of Bell Let’s Talk Day and suicide completions. “There was no associated change in suicide counts.” We mull the big campaign and the big paper.

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In the second selection, we look at a new podcast that explores race and racism in mental health. In this Quick Takes episode, I’m joined by Drs. Amy Gajaria and Saadia Sediqzadah (both of the University of Toronto). “Racism exists and it exists in the lives of our patients.” The podcast covers some big topics – but it is also practical, with solid clinical advice.

And in the third selection, Alex Kresovich (of the University of North Carolina) and his co-authors wonder about the cultural discussion of mental health. To that end, they review popular rap songs in a JAMA Pediatrics paper. “The findings of this qualitative study suggest that mental health discourse has been increasing during the past 2 decades within the most popular rap music in the US.”

DG

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