The asymmetries of the biopsychosocial model of depression in lay discourses - Topic modelling online depression forums.

SSM Popul Health

ELTE Eötvös Loránd University of Budapest, Faculty of Social Sciences, Research Center for Computational Social Science, Budapest, Pázmány Péter Sétány 1/a, 1117, Hungary.

Published: June 2021

AI Article Synopsis

  • The biopsychosocial model offers a comprehensive view of depression, challenging the traditional biomedical perspective that dominates expert discussions and impacts how people interpret and cope with their condition.
  • A study analyzed about 70,000 posts from online depression forums using natural language processing and qualitative methods to identify interaction patterns, revealing various topics related to health, relationships, therapy, and personal experiences.
  • The findings show that lay discussions largely overlook biomedical factors in favor of psychological insights, indicating that while individuals recognize social influences on depression, they often focus less on these aspects when seeking solutions.

Article Abstract

Background: One of the most comprehensive approaches to depression is the biopsychosocial model. From this wider perspective, social sciences have criticized the reductionist biomedical discourse, which has been dominating expert discourses for a long time. As these discourses determine the horizon of attributions and interventions, their lay interpretation plays a central role in the coping with depression.

Methods: In order to map these patterns, online depression forums are analyzed with natural language processing methods, where computational tools are complemented with a qualitative approach. Latent Dirichlet Allocation topic model of depression-related posts from the most popular English-speaking online health discussion forums (N = ~70 000) reveals the monolog (attributions and self-disclosures) and interactive (consultations and quasi-therapeutic interactions) patterns.

Results: Following the evaluation of various models 18 topics were differentiated: referring to health, family, partnership and work issues; referring to contemplations, introducing the experience of suffering and well-being, along with diaries of everyday activities and hardships; about psychotherapies, classifications, drugs and the experience; and relying on unconditional positive regards, recovery helpers experience or spirituality. These topics were evaluated from the perspective of the biopsychosocial model: the weight of each dimension was measured along with the discursive function.

Conclusions: Biomedical discourse is underrepresented in lay discussions, while psychological discourse plays an overall dominant role. Even if actors are initially aware of the social mechanisms contributing to depression, they neglect these factors when it comes to considering the countermeasures.

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Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8066842PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmph.2021.100785DOI Listing

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