Tweeting about pain: comparing self-reported toothache experiences with those of backaches, earaches and headaches.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The authors conducted a study of tweets posted on Twitter to compare self-reported toothache experiences with those of backache, earache and headache in regard to pain intensity, action taken, perceived cause and effect of pain.

Methods

From a total of 508,591 relevant tweets collected on seven nonconsecutive days, the authors randomly selected 1,204 tweets (301 per pain type) and conducted content analyses of each tweet.

Results

Toothaches were described as having higher pain intensity than were earaches or headaches but pain intensity comparable with that of backaches. Despite people who experience toothache being more likely to seek health care than those experiencing backaches (odds ratio [OR], 3.91; 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 1.57-9.71) or he

SUBMITTER: Ahlwardt K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4430082 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature