Online discussion forums for monitoring the need for targeted psychological health support: an observational case study of r/COVID19_support

TL;DR

This study demonstrates how monitoring Reddit's r/COVID19_support forum can identify mental health concerns among students during the pandemic, enabling targeted support and resource signposting.

Contribution

It introduces a method for analyzing online peer support forums to detect specific psychological stressors in at-risk groups during a crisis.

Findings

147 posts analyzed from 111 users

Themes included grief over lost experiences and future fears

Forum monitoring can guide targeted mental health support

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has placed a severe mental strain on people in general, and on young people in particular. Online support forums offer opportunities for peer-to-peer health support, which can ease pressure on professional and established volunteer services when demand is high. Such forums can also be used to monitor at-risk communities to identify concerns and causes of psychological stress. We created and monitored r/COVID19_support, an online forum for people seeking support during the COVID-19 pandemic, on the platform Reddit. We identify posts made by users self-identifying as students or posting about college/university life, then coded these posts to identify emerging themes that related to triggers of psychological anxiety and distress. 147 posts were made to the forum by 111 unique users during the study period. A number of themes were identified by manual coding, included: feelings of grief associated with the loss of college-related life experiences, such as graduation ceremonies or proms; difficulties with focussing on online and self-guided learning; and fears for the future, in particular of graduating into a constrained job market. The identification of specific issues enabled users to be signposted to information to help them cope with address those particular concerns. Monitoring peer-to-peer forums can help to identify specific issues with which vulnerable groups may require additional support, enabling users to be signposted on to high-quality information to address specific issues.