The psychological impact of COVID-19 on people suffering from dysfunctional eating behaviours: a linguistic analysis of the contents shared in an online community during the lockdown

Abstract

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) spread several months ago from China and it is now a global pandemic. The experience of lockdown has been an undesirable condition for people with mental health problems, including eating disorders. The present study has the aim of understanding the impact of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic on people with selfreported disordered eating behaviours. A linguistic analysis was carried out with regard to the online posts and comments published by 1971 individuals (86% women) in a Facebook online community focusing on EDs during the lockdown. A total of 244 posts and 3603 comments were collected during the 56 days of lockdown (from the 10th of March until the 4th of May 2020) in Italy and were analysed by Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) software. The results showed that words related to peer support decreased in posts over time, and that anxiety and anger increased in the published comments. Moreover, greater feelings of negativity and anxiety were found in posts and comments throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as lesser use of words related to positive emotions. Thematic qualitative analysis revealed eight themes that described the main subjective components of ED symptomatology and distress during the first COVID-19 lockdown. The current findings can help in delivering tailored treatments to people with eating disorders during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Psycholinguistic changes in the communication of adolescent users in a suicidal ideation online community during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…A similar decrease of social support was Fig. 2 Relative change of medians of topic prevalence in adolescent users' posts and comments in a suicidal ideation self-help community on the social media website Reddit between the pre-and mid-pandemic time periods documented in an online eating disorder community during the initial onset of the COVID-19 pandemic [57].…”

Anorexia and Young Womens’ Personal Networks: Size, Structure, and Kinship

“…Perhaps our participants were able to maintain relationships with people from their personal networks via digital technologies that is why they did not notice any changes in their social networks. Additionally, they could have felt peer support from the members of the online eating disorder communities as many researchers, for example, Albano et al (2021) have discovered that during emergent global situations such as COVID-19 pandemic these communities may provide for the members the feelings of being understood by people with comparable life situations.…”

Saúde mental e tópicos expressados no Facebook num estágio da Covid-19 em Moçambique

“…Amara, Hadj Taieb e Ben Aouicha (2021) consideram que essa plataforma é uma das maiores em nível global em termos de usuários ativos e com ganhos de crescimento ano a ano. Além disso, foi identificado como um dos meios de comunicação on-line mais influentes, que ajudou a conectar e inspirar comunidades com diversos grupos de pessoas (Harris, 2020); e uma plataforma ideal para estudar a opinião pública (Keller et al, 2017) nos aspectos de avaliação do comportamento pró-social da população em tempos de confinamento depois das medidas implementadas (Azizan;Ismail;Qaiwer, 2020) sentimentos de negatividade, ansiedade e angústia, bem como menor uso de palavras relacionadas a emoções positivas (Albano et al, 2021). Dentre os sentimentos negativos expressados nessa rede social, a preocupação vinha sendo muito comum, principalmente devido aos atrasos ou pausas relacionadas aos testes de vacinas (Hussain et al, 2021).…”

“…Eles verificaram que os principais tópicos discutidos e comentados no Twitter estavam relacionados com o número de casos, mortos e de infectados com a Covid-19. Na mesma linha, a veiculação de informações falsas e sem base científica, as notícias alarmantes e o excesso de tempo dedicado às notícias sobre a pandemia (Huang;Zhao, 2020), a falta de alimentos, de recursos financeiros, de salários, a realização de testes, hábitos alimentares, medicação para outras doenças, cortes de empregos, educação on-line, política também foram tópicos muito relatados pelas populações nas redes sociais (Abdelhafiz et al, 2020;Ahmed;Aurpa;Anwar, 2021;Albano et al, 2021;Ornell et al, 2020).…”