Temporal trends in health worker social media communication during the COVID-19 pandemic

During the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare professionals are exposed to extreme hazards and workplace stressors. Social media postings by physicians and nurses related to COVID-19 from January 21 to June 1, 2020 were obtained from the Reddit website. Topic modeling via Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) using a machine-learning approach was performed on 1723 documents, each posted in a unique Reddit discussion. We selected the optimal number of topics using a heuristic approach based on examination of the rate of perplexity change (RPC) across LDA models. A two-step multiple linear regression was done to identify differences across time and between nurses versus physicians. Prevalent topics included excessive workload, positive emotional expression and collegial support, anger and frustration, testing positive for COVID-19 and treatment, use of personal protective equipment, impacts on healthcare jobs, disruption of medical procedures, and general healthcare issues. Nurses' posts initially reflected concern about workload, personal danger, safety precautions, and emotional support to their colleagues. Physicians posted initially more often than nurses about technical aspects of the coronavirus disease, medical equipment, and treatment. Differences narrowed over time: nurses increasingly made technical posts, while physicians' posts increasingly were in the personal domain, suggesting a convergence of the professions over time.