Abstract
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a very common condition with more than 3 million new cases per year in the US alone. The right diagnosis in a timely manner is key to ensuring a prompt treatment that could lead to a full recovery. Unfortunately, avoidance of trauma reminders, social stigma, self-presentation, and self-assessment biases often prevent individuals from seeking timely evaluation, leading to delays in treatment and suboptimal outcomes. Previous studies show that various mental health conditions are associated with distinct patterns of language use. Analyzing language use may also help to avoid response bias in self-reports. In this study, we analyze text data from online forum users, showing that language use differences between PTSD sufferers and controls. In all groups of PTSD sufferers, the usage of singular first-person pronouns was higher and that of plural first-person pronouns was lower than in control groups. However, the analysis of other word categories suggests that subgroups of people with the same mental health disorder (here PTSD) may have salient differences in their language use, particularly in word usage frequencies. Additionally, we show that word usage patterns may vary depending on the type of the text analyzed. Nevertheless, more studies will be needed to increase precision by further examine a variety of text types and different comorbidities. If properly developed, such tools may facilitate earlier PTSD diagnosis, leading to timely support and treatment, which are associated with better outcomes.
Highlights
In the US alone, nearly 6 million people are disabled by mental illness
We developed a custom software program that extended Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) approach by combining it with character language models (CLMs) for additional word matching features, as well as additional and/or modified word categories tailored to Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
First person plural pronouns were lower in frequency in both PTSD groups compared to control 1, in the group where trauma occurred years ago the usage was the lowest (Mdiff = 0.014, Mdiff = 0.019, p < 0.001, Figure 1B)
Summary
In the US alone, nearly 6 million people are disabled by mental illness. This number rises each day by more than 400. This is not just a health crisis and an economic one: direct and indirect global economic costs of mental illness were estimated at US$2.5 trillion as of 2010. As reported by the National Center for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), 7–8% of the US population will experience PTSD at some point in their lifetime. In the past few decades, considerable progress has been made in understanding mental illness (Norquist and Hyman, 1999), leading to the development of more effective treatment options.
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