TY - JOUR
T1 - Global and Local Trends Affecting the Experience of US and UK Healthcare Professionals during COVID-19
T2 - Twitter Text Analysis
AU - Slobodin, Ortal
AU - Plochotnikov, Ilia
AU - Cohen, Idan-Chaim
AU - Elyashar, Aviad
AU - Cohen, Odeya
AU - Puzis, Rami
N1 - Funding Information:
Funding: This study was supported by an internal grant from the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Coronavirus Taskforce, and an Israeli Ministry of Science and Technology Coronavirus research grant. We thank them all.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
PY - 2022/6/4
Y1 - 2022/6/4
N2 - Background: Healthcare professionals (HCPs) are on the frontline of fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. Recent reports have indicated that, in addition to facing an increased risk of being infected by the virus, HCPs face an increased risk of suffering from emotional difficulties associated with the pandemic. Therefore, understanding HCPs’ experiences and emotional displays during emergencies is a critical aspect of increasing the surge capacity of communities and nations. Meth-ods: In this study, we analyzed posts published by HCPs on Twitter to infer the content of discourse and emotions of the HCPs in the United States (US) and United Kingdom (UK), before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. The tweets of 25,207 users were analyzed using natural language pro-cessing (NLP). Results: Our results indicate that HCPs in the two countries experienced common health, social, and political issues related to the pandemic, reflected in their discussion topics, sen-timents, and emotional display. However, the experiences of HCPs in the two countries are also subject to local socio-political trends, as well as cultural norms regarding emotional display. Con-clusions: Our results support the potential of utilizing Twitter discourse to monitor and predict public health responses in emergencies.
AB - Background: Healthcare professionals (HCPs) are on the frontline of fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. Recent reports have indicated that, in addition to facing an increased risk of being infected by the virus, HCPs face an increased risk of suffering from emotional difficulties associated with the pandemic. Therefore, understanding HCPs’ experiences and emotional displays during emergencies is a critical aspect of increasing the surge capacity of communities and nations. Meth-ods: In this study, we analyzed posts published by HCPs on Twitter to infer the content of discourse and emotions of the HCPs in the United States (US) and United Kingdom (UK), before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. The tweets of 25,207 users were analyzed using natural language pro-cessing (NLP). Results: Our results indicate that HCPs in the two countries experienced common health, social, and political issues related to the pandemic, reflected in their discussion topics, sen-timents, and emotional display. However, the experiences of HCPs in the two countries are also subject to local socio-political trends, as well as cultural norms regarding emotional display. Con-clusions: Our results support the potential of utilizing Twitter discourse to monitor and predict public health responses in emergencies.
KW - COVID-19
KW - emotions
KW - health and politics
KW - healthcare professionals
KW - natural language processing
KW - twitter analysis
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85131193269&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3390/ijerph19116895
DO - 10.3390/ijerph19116895
M3 - Article
C2 - 35682477
SN - 1661-7827
VL - 19
JO - International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
JF - International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
IS - 11
M1 - 6895
ER -
