We examined the use of Twitter as a potential means to monitor, extract and analyse useful insight from the UK public in relation to the concern and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health. A search strategy comprising a list of terms relating to COVID-19, the lockdown and mental health was developed and used to search for relevant tweets. We used a specialist text analytics and artificial intelligence platform to analyse the tweets in terms of volume, sentiment, and key topics of discussion. Two independent researchers carried out qualitative document analysis to further explore and expand on the results generated by the platform.
Using Twitter to track public opinion in the UK about mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic
In this paper we report on some initial work to explore Twitter as a potential means to monitor, extract, and analyse useful health-related insights from the UK public. In particular, this study focused on the concern and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health.