The Sentiment Analysis of Tweets as a New Tool to Measure Public Perception of Male Erectile and Ejaculatory Dysfunctions

Introduction: Twitter is a social network based on “tweets,” short messages of up to 280 characters. Social media has been investigated in health care research to ascertain positive or negative feelings associated with several conditions but never in sexual medicine. Aim: To assess perceptions related to erectile dysfunction (ED) and premature ejaculation (PE) among Twitter users. Methods: Data collection was performed on a daily basis between May 24–October 9, 2018 (138 days) via an automated script. Data collection was then performed after data cleaning. The statistical software R and the rtweet packages were used in both phases. Results: We collected 11,000 unique tweets for PE and 30,546 unique tweets for ED. After data cleaning, we analyzed 7,020 tweets on PE and 22,648 tweets on ED by analyzing the most recurring words and the clusters describing word associations. The most popular words for ED were “Treatment,” “Health,” and “Viagra,” whereas “Sex,” “Sexual,” and “Cure” were the top 3 for PE. Word clusters suggest the presence of some recurring themes, such as medical terms being grouped together. Additionally, tweets reflect the general feelings triggered by specific events, such as pieces of news pertaining to sexual dysfunctions. Clinical Implications: Tweets on sexual dysfunctions are posted every day, with more tweets on ED than on PE. Treatment is among the chief topics discussed for both conditions, although health concerns differ between PE and DE tweets. Strength and Limitations: This is the first analysis conducted on Tweets in the field of andrology and sexual medicine. A significant number of tweets were collected and analyzed. However, quantitative assessment of the sentiment was not feasible. Conclusion: Sexual dysfunctions are openly discussed on social media, and Twitter analysis could help understand the needs and interests of the general population on these themes.