Social media monitoring for adverse events

INTRODUCTION

A new resource for real-world information about drug side effects is social media. Numerous research has looked into how to use social media to spot early warning signs of adverse drug reactions. According to research near about 4.74 billion people uses social media in the world. So, it can use for faster detection of early signs and symptoms of any drug. A recent poll found that 90% of people between the ages of 18 and 24 trust medical information shared on social feeds.

TYPES OF SOCIAL MEDIA REPORTING  

In social media, reporting is classified into two categories: -
a)    Generic social networking sites
Big public platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.
b)    Specialized healthcare social networks and forums
Platforms like patients like me, Daily Strength, and Med Help. WebMD and Cure Together and patient forums like Ask a Patient and Medications.com

WHO CAN REPORT THE ADVERSE EVENT ON SOCIAL MEDIA?

Lots of people are using social media in the world, so anyone can report an adverse event on social media whether they are HCP or not hence according to FDA the social media cases are recorded as spontaneous cases. And user id of social media is reported as a reporter.

PROCESS OF SOCIAL MEDIA MONITORING 

• Collection of data:

According to GVP Module VI states that MAHs should regularly search the internet or digital media for potential reports of suspected adverse reactions. search the keyword on social media like drug name and collect the post and data.

•   Filter /classification of data:

 Followed by the collection of data, a large amount of raw data we get and we need to classify or filter irrelevant data,

•   Adverse drug reaction extraction: 

 In this, we have to identify the ADR-mentioned posts and then extract the ADR mention by identifying the spam in the post. And then extracted ADR mentions are mapped to the standard concept on MedDRA

•  Statistical analysis:

The statistical analysis is performed on extracted drug adr-pair, this step is used to identify drugs that may be harmful.

 

ADVANTAGES OF SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERSE EVENT MONITORING

•    Obtaining unfiltered user experience
•   More awareness for patients and pharmaceutical companies
•   Circulate the information more rapidly      
•   It also increases the speed of reporting  
•   Easy way to share or report an adverse event about drug

DISADVANTAGES OF SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERSE EVENT MONITORING

• Report may contain incorrect clinical attributes
•  Difficult to extract the data·     
•  There are issues regarding patient privacy·    
• · Non-HCP can also report the adverse event
•    Non-HCP can also report the adverse event

CONCLUSION

Adverse event monitoring by social media is the easiest way to report and also improve the relationship between the company and the community. As we know all good things have pros and cons, social media adverse event monitoring sometimes gets difficult to monitor a due large amount of data. As well as difficult to identify AE.

Social media ADR reports are reviewed as a spontaneous report. HCP as well as Non- HCP can report the adverse event on social media. so, in the future by the use of AI and ML social media monitoring will get easier to extract data and identify the AE

 

Written by: Sankalp Bali

Qualification: B. Pharmacy

ID: 170/0922