Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 8, 2025

Assessing Early Stage Open-Angle Glaucoma in Patients by Isolated-Check Visual Evoked Potential
Published on: May 25, 2020
Application of Patient Sentiment Analysis to Evaluate Glaucoma Care
Victoria Vought1, Rita Vought1, Ava Herzog2
1Institute of Ophthalmology and Visual Science, Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, Newark, New Jersey.
Purpose:
Patients utilize online physician reviews to decide between and rate ophthalmologists. Sentiment analysis allows for better understanding of patient experiences. In this study, Valence Aware Dictionary sEntiment Reasoner (VADER) and word frequency analysis of glaucoma specialist Healthgrades reviews were used to determine factors prioritized by patients.
Design:
Retrospective cross-sectional analysis.
Participants:
N/A.
Methods:
Written reviews and Star ratings of glaucoma specialists listed under the Physicians Payments Sunshine Acts were obtained, and demographic information was collected. Valence Aware Dictionary sEntiment Reasoner produced Negative, Neutral, Positive, and Compound scores of reviews, and these were stratified by demographic variables. Word frequency review was applied to determine popular words and phrases.
Main Outcome Measures:
Star ratings, VADER Compound score of written reviews, and highest word frequencies.
Results:
A total of 203 glaucoma specialists and 3531 written reviews were assessed. Glaucoma specialists had an average of 4.26/5 stars, with a mean of 30 ratings per physician on Healthgrades. Most physicians (86%) had overall Positive written reviews (VADER = 0.74), indicating high patient satisfaction. Specialists who were women or had fewer years of practice had higher Compound and Star scores than their respective male and senior counterparts, with statistical significance observed between junior and senior physician Stars (P < 0.001). Repeated words pertaining to the surgery, staff, wait times, and questions were common overall and among the most positive and most negative reviews.
Conclusions:
Glaucoma specialist patients value nonclinical factors, such as appointment setting and nonphysician health-care staff members, in their written reviews. Thus, factors beyond clinical outcomes are influential in the overall patient experience and should be considered to improve health-care delivery. These results can also advise ophthalmologists on factors that patients prioritize when evaluating physicians, which influences the decisions of other patients seeking glaucoma care.
Financial Disclosure(S):
The author(s) have no proprietary or commercial interest in any materials discussed in this article.
More Related Videos
06:29Comparing Objective Conjunctival Hyperemia Grading and the Ocular Surface Disease Index Score in Dry Eye Syndrome During COVID-19
Published on: May 25, 2022
13:47Laser Capture Microdissection of Highly Pure Trabecular Meshwork from Mouse Eyes for Gene Expression Analysis
Published on: June 3, 2018
Related Concept Videos
Open Angle Glaucoma: Treatment
Drugs such as carbonic anhydrase inhibitors, α2- and...
Glaucoma: Overview
Angle Closure Glaucoma: Treatment
Patient-centered Care
Errors occurring during blood pressure monitoring
Several factors...