Mental Health Discourses on Twitter during Mental Health Awareness Week

Issues Ment Health Nurs. 2021 May;42(5):437-450. doi: 10.1080/01612840.2020.1814914. Epub 2020 Sep 14.

Abstract

Promoting health-related campaigns on Twitter has increasingly become a world-wide choice to raise awareness and disseminate health information. Data retrieved from Twitter are now being used to explore how users express their views, attitudes and personal experiences of health-related issues. We focused on Twitter discourse reproduced during Mental Health Awareness Week 2017 by examining 1,200 tweets containing the keywords 'mental health', 'mental illness', 'mental disorders' and '#MHAW'. The analysis revealed 'awareness and advocacy', 'stigmatization', and 'personal experience of mental health/illness' as the central discourses within the sample. The article concludes with some recommendations for future research on digitally-mediated health communication.

MeSH terms

  • Health Promotion
  • Humans
  • Mental Disorders*
  • Mental Health
  • Social Media*
  • Stereotyping