Analysis of patient perspectives on bariatric surgery using an anonymous online forum

Bariatric surgery is utilized to treat morbid obesity in the United States. The study objective was to identify and analyze topics of interest on a popular social media platform used by bariatric surgery patients.

Online posts were obtained from the "r/BariatricSurgery" subreddit on Reddit.com. Posts were categorized by topic (Care Acquisition, Surgery-Related, Quality of Life Treatment Anxiety/Seeking validation for feelings) and author type. The sentiment analysis package Valence Aware Dictionary for Sentimental Reasoning (VADER) was then used to generate a compound score of the sentiment of each post. Posts with strongly positive sentiment (≥ 0.75) underwent word-frequency analysis.

In total, 486 posts were evaluated, mainly authored by patients (96.7 %). Most posts discussed Surgery-related topics (77 %), particularly post-operative content, followed by Quality of Life (64.8 %) topics. VADER sentiment analysis found an overall average score of 0.19, with 58.2 % of posts classified as Positive. The lowest sentiment was observed among posts discussing Co-management with Comorbidities (-0.16), while posts with the highest scores discussed Recreation/Occupation (0.88). Of note, Procedure Consideration (0.72) posts also had high sentiment. Frequently utilized words in positive reviews included "surgery" (p < 0.01), "weight" (p < 0.01), "week" (p < 0.01), "month" (p = 0.03), "diet" (p < 0.01), and "help" (p = 0.04).

We found an overall positive sentiment, particularly among Quality of Life improvements for bariatric surgery patients. This may suggest an evolving perspective on bariatric surgery, as well as decreased stigma for those considering the procedure. Evaluations of patient perspectives online tangibly identifies areas of strength and room for improvement in bariatric surgery care.