Web Conversations About Complementary and Alternative Medicines and Cancer: Content and Sentiment Analysis.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) among cancer patients is widespread and mostly self-administrated. Today, one of the most relevant topics is the nondisclosure of CAM use to doctors. This general lack of communication exposes patients to dangerous behaviors and to less reliable information channels, such as the Web. The Italian context scarcely differs from this trend. Today, we are able to mine and analyze systematically the unstructured information available in the Web, to get an insight of people's opinions, beliefs, and rumors concerning health topics.

Objective

Our aim was to analyze Italian Web conversations about CAM, identifying the most relevant Web sources, therapies, and diseases and measure the related sentiment.

Methods

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SUBMITTER: Mazzocut M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4929351 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature