Identifying Medicine Shortages With the Twitter Social Network: Retrospective Observational Study.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Early identification is critical for mitigating the impact of medicine shortages on patients. The internet, specifically social media, is an emerging source of health data.

Objective

This study aimed to explore whether a routine analysis of data from the Twitter social network can detect signals of a medicine shortage and serve as an early warning system and, if so, for which medicines or patient groups.

Methods

Medicine shortages between January 31 and December 1, 2019, were collected from the Dutch pharmacists' society's national catalog Royal Dutch Pharmacists Association (KNMP) Farmanco. Posts on these shortages were collected by searching for the name, the active pharmaceutical ingredient, or the first word of the brand name of the medicines in shortag

SUBMITTER: Postma DJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11336501 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature