Glimpsing the Impact of COVID19 Lock-Down on People With Epilepsy: A Text Mining Approach

Jacopo Lanzone; Cristina Cenci; Mario Tombini; Lorenzo Ricci; Tommaso Tufo; Marta Piccioli; Alfonso Marrelli; Oriano Mecarelli; Giovanni Assenza

doi:10.3389/fneur.2020.00870

Glimpsing the Impact of COVID19 Lock-Down on People With Epilepsy: A Text Mining Approach

Front Neurol. 2020 Aug 19:11:870. doi: 10.3389/fneur.2020.00870. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Jacopo Lanzone¹, Cristina Cenci², Mario Tombini¹, Lorenzo Ricci¹, Tommaso Tufo³, Marta Piccioli⁴, Alfonso Marrelli⁵, Oriano Mecarelli⁶, Giovanni Assenza¹

Affiliations

¹ Unit of Neurology, Neurophysiology, Neurobiology, Department of Medicine, University Campus Bio-Medico of Rome, Rome, Italy.
² DNM-Digital Narrative Medicine, Rome, Italy.
³ Policlinico Gemelli Foundation University Hospital IRCSS, Rome, Italy.
⁴ Unit of Neurology, AO S. Filippo Neri, Rome, Italy.
⁵ Unit of Neurology, AO S. Salvatore, L'Aquila, Italy.
⁶ Department of Neurology and Psychiatry, "Sapienza" University of Rome, Rome, Italy.

Abstract

Objectives: To describe how the recent lock-down, related to SARS-COV-II outbreak in Italy, affected People With Epilepsy (PwE), we designed a survey focused on subjective reactions. Using Natural Language Processing (NLP), we analyzed words PwE and People without Epilepsy (PwoE) chose to express their reactions. Methods: As a subset of a larger survey, we collected from both PwE (427) and PwoE (452) single words (one per subject) associated to the period of lock down. The survey was spread thanks to the efforts of Italian league against epilepsy Foundation during the days of maximum raise of the pandemic. Data were analyzed via bag of word and sentiment analysis techniques in R. Results: PwoE and PwE showed significantly different distribution in word choice (X², p = 4.904e-13). A subset of subject used positive words to describe this period, subjects with positive feelings about the lock down were more represented in the PwE group (X², p = 0.045). Conclusion: PwoE developed reactive stress response to the restrictions enacted during lock-down. PwE, instead, chose words expressing sadness and concern with their disease. PwE appear to internalize more the trauma of lock down. Interestingly PwE also expressed positive feelings about this period of isolation more frequently than PwoE. Our study gives interesting insights on how People with Epilepsy react to traumatic events, using methods that evidence features that do not emerge with psychometric scales.

Keywords: COVID-19; epilepsy; natural-language processing; neuropsychology; text-mining.