Using close to half a million unique online digital conversations about depression, analyzed through machine learning techniques like NLP, our study shows a remarkable difference in the attitudes, beliefs, and treatment-seeking behavior towards depression between Hispanics and non-Hispanics. Depression does not discriminate based on race, color, gender or ethnicity. However, the experiences and how people understand and cope with these conditions may be impacted by their cultural beliefs. In Hispanics, protective factors like individual resilience and the family role have been proposed 16,17. However, our study reveals a starkly different and dismal picture of how Hispanics cope and approach depression compared to the non-Hispanic population. The analysis of digital conversations found that Hispanic’s discussions about depression more often have a negative tone. Their attitude suggests frequent struggle and a sense of hopelessness about depression. To compound the problem, they are less involved with the treatment and infrequently discuss it online.
The use of digital and social media to research various health metrics adds a new dimension to enhance our understanding of disease perception in the public. These platforms provide ground for collaborative interaction between individuals of diverse backgrounds and health literacy18. While some studies find the use of social media to be associated with increased risk of depression 19, others have found its use in disseminating positive health messages about mental health 20. A recent study found that the analysis of digital comments of an online community on individual posts, in combination, could predict depression in the individual online users 21. We found that a significantly greater percentage of adolescents compared to adults engage in conversation about suicide. There are several key differences among this sub-population of individuals regarding suicidality, which were revealed by the analysis of digital conversations 22.
Interestingly, only 16% of the digital conversations analyzed were from social networking sites compared to slightly over a third coming from topical sites and message boards. Although the possibility that digital conversations on social media sites are less often open source cannot be ruled out, this distribution of sampled conversations could also reflect a hesitation and reluctance about discussing one’s mental health status, especially depression with a social group of friends and family22.
The comparison of the digital conversations about depression reveals that 1.7-times as many Hispanics discuss it in negative tones as compared to non-Hispanics. The evaluation of drivers behind the tone of the conversation explains some of this difference. While Hispanics are less concerned about the impact of depression on their lives than non-Hispanics (18% vs. 26%, respectively), a disproportionately higher number of them seem to be influenced by the stigma of depression (21% vs. 12%, respectively). Research reveals a high degree of stigma towards depression in the Hispanic population, which is associated with poor compliance with treatment23,24. While the digital conversation analysis does not assess medication non-compliance or non-adherence of the users, which is known to be higher among Hispanics 25, we found a notable difference in the use of treatment efficacy as a driver of the tone of digital conversation. As noted in Table 1, a substantially lower percentage of conversations by Hispanics used treatment efficacy as a positive driver (19% vs. 28%, respectively) or the lack of treatment efficacy as a negative driver (9% vs. 23%, respectively). This rather suggests that the Hispanic population does not talk about depression treatment as often, likely reflecting the fear of being labeled as suffering from mental illness (a self-perceived stigma), except for the mention of their complications (26% vs. 20%, respectively). This complicated relationship of Hispanics with depression treatment is also reflected in the four stages of depression described by us based on the digital conversations.
As the attitude towards mental illness, including depression, can change over time, we used supervised NLP to classify the cross-section of digital conversations into four stages of an individual’s experience with depression. These stages include digital conversation reflecting concern about the possibility of suffering from depression (Suspect stage), recently being diagnosed with depression (Diagnosed), and actively engaged in treatment (Treatment stage) or just living with it (Coping stage). Our analysis found that only slightly over half as many conversations among Hispanics than non-Hispanics find them in the treatment phase of depression. In contrast, Hispanics are 1.8-times more frequently in the coping stage based on conversation analysis. Staying in the later stage means an awareness about having depression but dealing with it by any means other than clinical treatment. It may perhaps reflect the irrational fear of mental health treatment secondary to its stigma. The analysis of conversation topics even more clearly supports this lack of engagement with depression in a constructive way among Hispanics. Compared to non-Hispanics, only half as many Hispanics talk about therapies (25% vs. 12%, respectively) or deliberate the causes of depression (11% vs. 6%, respectively). In comparison, close to half (44%) of them discuss living with depression. The difference in topics discussed between the two populations can be noted in most of the stages of depression ( Fig. 4). The infrequent topic of therapy in conversations by Hispanics is supported by the real-world data from the National Alliance on Mental Illness, which shows that each year approximately 33% of Hispanics with mental illness receive treatment compared to the average of 43% in the U.S. 26. A critical factor that should not be ignored when compared to non-Hispanics is the challenge related to immigration, availability of health insurance and eventual acculturation 5,27,28.
The analysis of attitude towards depression among Hispanics portrayed by these digital conversations demonstrates a similar lack of involvement with depression in them. We found a remarkable difference between non-Hispanics and Hispanics population regarding their active participation and involvement in managing depression. This difference is noted in the suspect (46% vs. 0%, respectively), diagnosed (35% vs. 9%, respectively), and the treatment (57% vs. 32%, respectively) phases. A clinically relevant finding is that Hispanics more frequently come to the diagnosis stage, from the suspect stage, with a resigned and hopeless attitude (67% vs. 44%), and maintain that attitude in the treatment phase as well. This mindset can potentially affect the patient-caregiver relationship, medication compliance, and, clinic adherence rates, all of which can create a vicious cycle of reaffirming their lack of engagement with, and benefit from treatment for depression. There is tremendous need to increase awareness about symptoms of depression and the benefits of therapy among Hispanics. Additionally, our results suggest that primary care and mental health providers need to be aware of a higher degree of a sense of hopelessness, and lack of belief in the effectiveness of treatment among Hispanics struggling with depression. Actively promoting their early and continued engagement with therapies for depression is required. Similarly, managing expectations by educating about expected delays of few weeks in emergence of benefits from anti-depressant may ameliorate some of the attitudes towards depression treatment. Previous research shows that Hispanics tend to view mental illness as a manifestation of weakness or a major flaw in their character and thus tend to reject the notion of having a mental disorder or needing psychiatric treatment 29,30. However, our research reveals that they possibly, in private, struggle with the thought of having depression.
The biggest strength of our research is that we were able to exploit the advances in AI tools like NLP to analyze digital conversation big data, which would not be possible otherwise. A large dataset of close to half-million digital conversations provides definite robustness to our findings. An additional feature of our study is the advantage of analyzing public digital conversation on mental illness topics like depression. These conversations made outside of formal clinical or research environment and pooled from across the country help us to understand the mindset and attitudes towards depression from a previously unexplored vantage point. Along with the above strengths, our study has some limitations as well. Our findings only apply to the US population since only the conversations originating from IP addresses in the US that were not protected behind firewalls were used in the study. We only analyzed individuals whose ethnicity could be determined based on self-identification in their conversations or their public profile. Hispanics constitute 18.3% of US population 31, but they only contributed to 9.8% of all digital conversations analyzed by us. This could partly be due to the lower prevalence of depression in them compared to non-Hispanics population32 or the fact that Hispanics are afraid to talk about their mental illness, and they will attempt multiple other avenues in fear of the stigma of accepting a psychiatric diagnosis. However, the role of analyzing only English language digital conversation cannot be ruled out. While a 2013 Pew research showed that 68% of Hispanics consider themselves proficient in English 33, it is possible we missed a small but a substantial portion of Hispanics posting online in Spanish, which we could not reliably analyze using NLP programs. Similarly, the limited availability of internet and technology in this community, which, however, is rapidly improving could be a reason as well34. Another limitation is that we did not collect gender- related data.
In conclusion, by utilizing the digital conversations made by individuals during routine daily lives that are available in the public domain, our study reveals several key features of the Hispanic population’s relationship with depression. We found that they commonly have a negative, resigned, and hopeless attitude towards depression and lack active involvement with its management, which is in sharp contrast to non-Hispanics. This knowledge should particularly be used for formulating strategies to engage Hispanics during the latent, suspect stages of depression. Future studies validating our findings in clearly identified and characterized Hispanics are required to improve our patient’s mental well-being.