Mental Health Discourse Analysis

LIS3813 Introduction to Text Processing

Overview

Analyzed approximately 15,000 posts from MindCafe, a Korean online mental health community, to explore how academic, career, and interpersonal concerns differ between teenagers and adults.

Methods: Temporal Analysis · Topic Modeling (LDA) · Social Network Analysis · Word Cloud Visualization

Key Findings

  • Age-group differences: Teenagers frequently discussed studies, friendships, and parents, while adults emphasized employment, stress, and depression.
  • Temporal patterns: Employment- and school-related discussions peaked around recruitment seasons, examinations, and semester transitions.
  • Social network analysis: Keyword co-occurrence networks highlighted study and exam clusters in the Employment/Career board and links among depression, family, and interpersonal relationships in the Mental Health board. Ego networks further explored terms associated with depression and stress.
Ego network analysis centered on the keywords Depression and Stress.

Topic Modeling (LDA) Results

For the Employment/Career board, the identified topics included:

  1. Pre-university stress — study, school, parents, exams
  2. University students’ academic and career worries — study, career, job, graduation
  3. Anxiety and lethargy — anxiety, mood, depression
  4. Job preparation stress — job, interview, qualifications
  5. Family relations and conflicts — parents, family, counseling
  6. Workplace stress — job, company, resignation, workload

For the Mental Health board, the identified topics included:

  1. Interpersonal relationships — friends, emotions, personality
  2. Depression and emotional regulation — depression, self-harm, suicidal thoughts
  3. Family and school life — parents, school, family conflicts
  4. Anxiety and stress — anxiety, stress, trauma
  5. Mental health counseling — counseling, psychiatry, treatment
  6. Workplace stress — workplace, job, career
  7. Psychiatric care and depression treatment — depression, treatment, diagnosis
  8. Academic stress — study, school, exams
  9. Life and marriage concerns — marriage, life, existential worries

Tools: Python · BeautifulSoup · Selenium · Pandas · NLTK · pyLDAvis · WordCloud