Evidence map›Paper›PMID 38833288›Full record

ArticleJMIR formative research2024

Identifying X (Formerly Twitter) Posts Relevant to Dementia and COVID-19: Machine Learning Approach.

Mehrnoosh Azizi, Ali Akbar Jamali, Raymond J Spiteri

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in JMIR formative research, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
2citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

2 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors.

Mehrnoosh AziziDepartment of Computer Science, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, Canada.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4337-4630
Ali Akbar JamaliDepartment of Computer Science, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, Canada.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6942-5926
Raymond J SpiteriDepartment of Computer Science, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, Canada.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3513-6237

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundDuring the pandemic, patients with dementia were identified as a vulnerable population. X (formerly Twitter) became an important source of information for people seeking updates on COVID-19, and, therefore, identifying posts (formerly tweets) relevant to dementia can be an important support for patients with dementia and their caregivers. However, mining and coding relevant posts can be daunting due to the sheer volume and high percentage of irrelevant posts.

objectiveThe objective of this study was to automate the identification of posts relevant to dementia and COVID-19 using natural language processing and machine learning (ML) algorithms.

methodsWe used a combination of natural language processing and ML algorithms with manually annotated posts to identify posts relevant to dementia and COVID-19. We used 3 data sets containing more than 100,000 posts and assessed the capability of various algorithms in correctly identifying relevant posts.

resultsOur results showed that (pretrained) transfer learning algorithms outperformed traditional ML algorithms in identifying posts relevant to dementia and COVID-19. Among the algorithms tested, the transfer learning algorithm A Lite Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (ALBERT) achieved an accuracy of 82.92% and an area under the curve of 83.53%. ALBERT substantially outperformed the other algorithms tested, further emphasizing the superior performance of transfer learning algorithms in the classification of posts.

conclusionsTransfer learning algorithms such as ALBERT are highly effective in identifying topic-specific posts, even when trained with limited or adjacent data, highlighting their superiority over other ML algorithms and applicability to other studies involving analysis of social media posts. Such an automated approach reduces the workload of manual coding of posts and facilitates their analysis for researchers and policy makers to support patients with dementia and their caregivers and other vulnerable populations.

Indexed as

Alzheimer diseaseCOVID-19dementiamachine learningnatural language processingX (Twitter)

Identifiers

PMID38833288
PMCPMC11185906

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.