Patient narratives in Yelp reviews offer insight into opioid experiences and the challenges of pain management. (16th February 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Graves, Rachel L; Goldshear, Jesse; Perrone, Jeanmarie; Ungar, Lyle; Klinger, Elissa; Meisel, Zachary F; Merchant, Raina M
• Is Part Of: Pain management. Volume 8:Number 2(2018)
• Page Start: 95
• Page End: 104
• Publication Date: 2018-02-16
• Subjects: opioids -- pain assessment -- pain management -- social media -- Yelp; Pain -- Treatment -- Periodicals; 616.047205
• DOI: 10.2217/pmt-2017-0050
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1758-1869

Abstract

Aim: To characterize Yelp reviews about pain management and opioids.Methods: We manually coded and applied natural language processing to 836 Yelp reviews of US hospitals mentioning an opioid medication.Results: Yelp reviews by patients and caregivers describing experiences with pain management and opioids had lower ratings compared with other reviews. Negative descriptions of pain management and opioid-related experiences were more commonly described than positive experiences, and the number of themes they reflected was more diverse.Conclusion: Yelp reviews offer insights into pain management and opioid use that are not assessed by traditional surveys. As a free, highly utilized source of unstructured narratives, Yelp may allow ongoing assessment of policies related to pain management and opioid use.