Perceptions of Hospital Care for Persons With Dementia During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Social Media Sentiment Analysis

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic led to many hospital service disruptions and strict visitor restrictions that affected care of older adult populations. This study investigates perceptions of hospital care for persons with dementia during the COVID-19 pandemic as shared on Reddit's social media platform. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: This study combined an Opinion Mining Framework with linguistic processing to conduct a sentiment analysis of word clusters and care-based content in a sample of 1,205 posts shared between February 2020 and March 2023 in Reddit's English-language corpus. Data were classified based on reoccurring contiguous sequences of 2 words from our text sample. RESULTS: Hospital dementia care discourse on Reddit advanced 4 negative sentiment themes: (1) fear of poor medication management, hydration, and hygiene, (2) loss of patient advocacy, (3) precipitation of advance directive discussions, and (4) delayed discharge and loss of nursing home bed. One positive sentiment theme also emerged: gratitude toward hospital staff. DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS: Negative sentiment Reddit posts constituted a larger share of the posts than positive posts regarding hospital care for persons with dementia. People who posted about their experiences shared their concerns about hospital care deficiencies and the importance of including informal caregivers in hospital settings, particularly in the context of a pandemic. Implications exist for dementia training, improved quality of care, advance care planning, and transitions in care policies.