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Tracing medicinal agencies: Antidepressants and life-effects
1Center for Consumer Society Research/Helsinki/Center for Digital Humanities, PO Box 24, 00014, University of Helsinki, Finland.
Social Science & Medicine (1982)
|June 25, 2019
Summary
This study uses big data to analyze everyday experiences with antidepressants, reframing side effects as "life effects." This approach highlights the lived realities of medication and calls for political consideration of their impact.
Area of Science:
- Social Sciences
- Digital Humanities
- Medical Sociology
Background:
- The social life of methods approach encourages engagement with big data for methodological innovation.
- Understanding the everyday knowledge and use of medicines is crucial for research and knowledge translation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To explore human-drug associations using big data and a computational tool.
- To investigate how digital tools can reshape our understanding of everyday drug experiences.
- To analyze the lived experiences of antidepressant use, distinguishing between "side effects" and "life effects".
Main Methods:
- Utilized the Medicine Radar computational tool to analyze 19 million health-related online posts from Suomi24 (Finland24) over 16 years.
- Employed defined markers to sort and analyze "medicine talk" within online discussions.
- Focused on empirical analysis of antidepressant use, categorizing experiences into reactions, life stabilization, and coming to terms with medication.
Main Results:
- Identified three key areas of antidepressant use in online discussions: reactions, life stabilization, and acceptance.
- Highlighted how intended and unintended drug effects are experienced as "life effects" in everyday contexts.
- Demonstrated that reframing side effects as life effects has significant political implications, underscoring the collective weight of lived experiences.
Conclusions:
- Everyday experiences with antidepressants are characterized by "life effects" rather than solely "side effects."
- The analysis of big data provides collective weight to individual experiences with medication.
- There is a need to politicize the impact of antidepressants on individuals' lives, acknowledging their lived realities.
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