I’m not Thrilled about my Colonoscopy: Assessing Sentiment and Emotions from Social Media Posts: An Abstract

Abstract

From a consumer marketing perspective, undergoing any surgical procedure is, for the average individual, a “credence” good, those which the quality cannot be ascertained through search, and cannot even be realistically judged after their purchase and consumption (Darby and Karni 1973). MedcineNet is a website containing detailed articles on different medical conditions and diseases as well as detailed articles on various medical procedures like knee replacements, C-sections and colonoscopies. A patient comments section is available on many of these articles that contain comments from patients who have undergone a similar procedure to read. For many perspective patients, the patient comments section may be comforting to read as they prepare for their own procedure. In the case of colonoscopies, most patients don’t have the expertise to know whether they even really needed a colonoscopy or not, and once it has been performed, most patients are not really in a position to judge whether it was performed poorly or well. After surgeries, patients frequently turn to social media to assess the experiences expressed by others and to talk about their own.

In this study, we collected 93 patient reviews from MedicineNet from patients who underwent a colonoscopy procedure. We first employ IBM Watson to examine how patients who have undergone colonoscopies talk about their emotions and express sentiment through their comments online. We explore their emotions (anger, disgust, fear, happiness and sadness) and their overall sentiment after undergoing a colonoscopy. While a colonoscopy is not a positive experience for most patients, evidenced by mostly negative sentiment and high levels of fear and sadness, some do express a positive sentiment, and the emotion of joy. This was seen in patients who shared commend that they were happy that the procedure was “over”, or they were relieved when their results indicated no evidence of cancer or other serious illnesses. Limitations are acknowledged, managerial implications identified, and avenues for future research are suggested.