ArticleJMIR public health and surveillance2017
Investigating Subjective Experience and the Influence of Weather Among Individuals With Fibromyalgia: A Content Analysis of Twitter.
Article in JMIR public health and surveillance, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 25 citations in OpenAlex.
- Understanding Exercise-Induced Hypoalgesia: An Umbrella Review of Scientific Evidence and Qualitative Content Analysis.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2025Pooled it
- The Application of Internet-Based Sources for Public Health Surveillance (Infoveillance): Systematic Review.Journal of medical Internet research · 2020Pooled it
- Understanding public perceptions and discussions on diseases involving chronic pain through social media: cross-sectional infodemiology study.BMC musculoskeletal disorders · 2024Article
- In.To. COVID-19 socio-epidemiological co-causality.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Investigating Individuals' Perceptions Regarding the Context Around the Low Back Pain Experience: Topic Modeling Analysis of Twitter Data.Journal of medical Internet research · 2021Article
- Sentiment Analysis in Health and Well-Being: Systematic Review.JMIR medical informatics · 2020Review
- Social Media as a Catalyst for Policy Action and Social Change for Health and Well-Being: Viewpoint.Journal of medical Internet research · 2018Article
- Attitudes of Crohn's Disease Patients: Infodemiology Case Study and Sentiment Analysis of Facebook and Twitter Posts.JMIR public health and surveillance · 2017Article
- Using Social Media to Characterize Public Sentiment Toward Medical Interventions Commonly Used for Cancer Screening: An Observational Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2017Observational
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundLittle is understood about the determinants of symptom expression in individuals with fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS). While individuals with FMS often report environmental influences, including weather events, on their symptom severity, a consistent effect of specific weather conditions on FMS symptoms has yet to be demonstrated. Content analysis of a large number of messages by individuals with FMS on Twitter can provide valuable insights into variation in the fibromyalgia experience from a first-person perspective.
objectiveThe objective of our study was to use content analysis of tweets to investigate the association between weather conditions and fibromyalgia symptoms among individuals who tweet about fibromyalgia. Our second objective was to gain insight into how Twitter is used as a form of communication and expression by individuals with fibromyalgia and to explore and uncover thematic clusters and communities related to weather.
methodsComputerized sentiment analysis was performed to measure the association between negative sentiment scores (indicative of severe symptoms such as pain) and coincident environmental variables. Date, time, and location data for each individual tweet were used to identify corresponding climate data (such as temperature). We used graph analysis to investigate the frequency and distribution of domain-related terms exchanged in Twitter and their association strengths. A community detection algorithm was applied to partition the graph and detect different communities.
resultsWe analyzed 140,432 tweets related to fibromyalgia from 2008 to 2014. There was a very weak positive correlation between humidity and negative sentiment scores (r=.009, P=.001). There was no significant correlation between other environmental variables and negative sentiment scores. The graph analysis showed that "pain" and "chronicpain" were the most frequently used terms. The Louvain method identified 6 communities. Community 1 was related to feelings and symptoms at the time (subjective experience). It also included a list of weather-related terms such as "weather," "cold," and "rain."
conclusionsAccording to our results, a uniform causal effect of weather variation on fibromyalgia symptoms at the group level remains unlikely. Any impact of weather on fibromyalgia symptoms may vary geographically or at an individual level. Future work will further explore geographic variation and interactions focusing on individual pain trajectories over time.
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