Twitter Users' Views on Mental Health Crisis Resolution Team Care Compared With Stakeholder Interviews and Focus Groups: Qualitative Analysis.

Natasha Chilman,Jane Wackett,Nicola Morant,Sonia Johnson,Brynmor Lloyd-Evans

doi:10.2196/25742

Abstract

BackgroundAnalyzing Twitter posts enables rapid access to how issues and experiences are socially shared and constructed among communities of health service users and providers, in ways that traditional qualitative methods may not.ObjectiveTo enrich the understanding of mental health crisis care in the United Kingdom, this study explores views on crisis resolution teams (CRTs) expressed on Twitter. We aim to identify the similarities and differences among views expressed on Twitter compared with interviews and focus groups.MethodsWe used Twitter’s advanced search function to retrieve public tweets on CRTs. A thematic analysis was conducted on 500 randomly selected tweets. The principles of refutational synthesis were applied to compare themes with those identified in a multicenter qualitative interview study.ResultsThe most popular hashtag identified was #CrisisTeamFail, where posts were principally related to poor quality of care and access, particularly for people given a personality disorder diagnosis. Posts about CRTs giving unhelpful self-management advice were common, as were tweets about resource strains on mental health services. This was not identified in the research interviews. Although each source yielded unique themes, there were some overlaps with themes identified via interviews and focus groups, including the importance of rapid access to care. Views expressed on Twitter were generally more critical than those obtained via face-to-face methods.ConclusionsTraditional qualitative studies may underrepresent the views of more critical stakeholders by collecting data from participants accessed via mental health services. Research on social media content can complement traditional or face-to-face methods and ensure that a broad spectrum of viewpoints can inform service development and policy.

Highlights

Twitter in Mental Health ResearchTwitter has emerged as a prominent social media platform that may be a valuable data source for researchers wanting to access stakeholders’ views on many topics, including mental health services [1]
We aim to explore Twitter posts about crisis resolution teams (CRTs) and compare these posts with views obtained via interviews and focus groups
Owing to the search strategy and the nature of Twitter, we were unable to determine the precise demographics of our sample, such as age, location, or mental health diagnosis of tweeters

Summary

Introduction

Twitter has emerged as a prominent social media platform that may be a valuable data source for researchers wanting to access stakeholders’ views on many topics, including mental health services [1]. Similar to any data collection method, these strengths and limitations are important to consider when analyzing Twitter data in mental health research. Analyzing Twitter posts enables rapid access to how issues and experiences are socially shared and constructed among communities of health service users and providers, in ways that traditional qualitative methods may not. Posts about CRTs giving unhelpful self-management advice were common, as were tweets about resource strains on mental health services This was not identified in the research interviews. Conclusions: Traditional qualitative studies may underrepresent the views of more critical stakeholders by collecting data from participants accessed via mental health services. Research on social media content can complement traditional or face-to-face methods and ensure that a broad spectrum of viewpoints can inform service development and policy

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Conclusion