Infoveillance, the process of social listening in order to identify and evaluate what is said about an individual, product, brand or company through the internet, was the focus of a new study published in JMIR Publications, which analyzed the response of substance abuse in persons taking pharmaceuticals for nonmedical purposes within the context of electronic interactive media.
The study determined when people referenced the misuse of pharmaceuticals bupropion, venlafaxine and amitriptyline. A collection of generic, brand and product names was used to analyze product citations in posts, the study stated. The posts were then gathered by natural language processing tools to collect references to drug misuse.
The results pulled from 7,756 online references in social media posts, in which at least one of the study’s antidepressants were addressed within the media posts.
Of the 8.61 percent of posts about the misuse of prescription pills, 12.3, 10, and 10.8 percent encouraged the misuse of bupropion, amitriptyline and venlafaxine, respectively.
Meanwhile, the rest of the remarks discouraged misuse of the drug in 40.6, 22, and 18.5 percent, respectively. It’s unclear why there were disparities in the discouragement of taking the drugs for nonmedical purposes; however, the study found interesting details about the drugs that may point to a reason.
Administering the drug through the nose was most commonly reported in… (continue reading)
Author: Ryan Beitler
An editor and contributor to Addiction Now, Ryan Beitler is a journalist, fiction writer, musician, and travel writer. He has written for Paste Magazine, OC Weekly, numerous addiction recovery publications, and his travel blog Our Little Blue Rock. He lives in Southern California. Contact Ryan at ryanrbeitler@gmail.com or ryanb@addictionnow.com.
