Side Effect Reporting in Online Drug Reviews

Online drug reviews are an important resource for consumers and patients. However, potential misinformation from online drug reviews in the form of side effects reporting can bias consumer decisions about medications, potentially leading to detrimental health outcomes. The focus of this study is to understand the content discussed in online drug reviews and the potential risks in online drug reviews caused by patients’ overreporting of certain kinds of side effects. For instance, patients may be more likely to report visible short term side effects compared to less visible side effects. Additionally, patients are more likely to report short term side effects compared to long term side effects. Patients relying on online drug reviews might select medications with less evident but potentially more severe side effects, misled by the over-representation of side effects in the reviews. Drawing on a sample of online drug reviews collected from a large popular online drug review platform, we employ state-of-the-art machine learning techniques to identify the themes being discussed and types of side effects reported in online drug reviews. Our preliminary findings detail the topics and side effects discussed in online drug reviews, as well as the different dimensions and the frequency with which topics appear. Results from this work can contribute to the overall literature on online reviews and provide useful insights to the public, policymakers and online platforms in their understanding of side effect reporting in online drug reviews.