Social media research project final

Prescription Drug Abuse:
Does Social Media Play a Role?
Catherine B Kemp
Social Media Marketing & Communication
CM 210-01, Spring 2012
Social Media Monitoring Project, Final Report

2
As discussed in the mid-term report for this
project, posted March 16, 2012, recent studies
have cited an alarming increase in the number of
adolescents and college students who admit to
illicit or recreational use of prescribed opiate
analgesics and stimulant medications.

From: Paulozzi, L. J. (2011, November 4). Vital Signs: Overdoses of Prescription Opioid Pain Relievers -- United States, 1999-
2008. Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Report , 60 (43), p 1491 3
Paulozzi reported in an
article published in
2011 that, in 2008 in
the U.S., opiate pain
relievers were involved
in 73.8% of the 20,044
reported deaths due
to prescription drug
overdoses.

Swanson, J., Wigal, T., & Volkow, N. (2011, September). Contrast of Medical and Nonmedical Use of Stimulant Drugs, Basis for the Distinction,
and Risk of Addiction: Comment on Smith and Farah (2011). Psychological Bulletin , 137 (5), p 744
A 2011 review of stimulant
use found that the total
number of prescriptions
dispensed for this therapeutic
category has risen steadily
each year. In fact there has
been an over eleven-fold
increase between 1990 and
2010
4

Another study looking at
students who had
legitimate prescriptions for
either type of drug found
that 61.7% diverted their
stimulants, while 35.1%
diverted their analgesics to
another person for non-
prescribed use.
Garnier, L., Arria, A., Caldeira, K., Vincent, K., & O’Grady, K. (2010, March). Sharing and selling of prescription medications in a college
student sample. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry , pp. 262-269. 5

6
The principle objective of this monitoring project
is to explore whether or not data culled from
Social Media can be a useful tool in the
phenomenology research of non-medical use of
certain prescription drugs- specifically the
stimulant Adderall®, and the opiate analgesic
OxyContin®.

7
Objectives:
To explore the types of interaction and frequency of
mentions;
To identify any patterns of communication related to
these drugs that might emerge; and
To explore some of the methodological, ethical, and
practical issues that must be considered in this format.

8
Method:
The volume and context of mentions of each
drug were tracked daily, over the 6 week period
of February 16- March 28, 2012 on the following
social networking sites.
Facebook
Twitter
Google Plus

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Results: Overview
9

Total “buzz” volume (top) vs. Index
of mentions: total number of blog
posts
Feb 16- Mar 28, 2012
Adderall® shown in blue in both graphs:
Sharp decrease in total number of mentions
during period coinciding with Spring Break
The peak volumes coincide with period
immediately following Spring break
Oxycontin® shown in orange (top) and
pink (bottom):
Note large fluctuations in % of total mentions
while absolute number has more narrow
variation
Peak volume in late February coincides with
increased mentions of new restrictions on
availability of the drug, in Canada.
Increased volume in mid March coincides with
increased mentions of radio personality Rush
Limbaugh and OxyContin® addiction.
Sources: Top graph- actionly.com
Bottom graph- icerocket.com

Results: Adderall®
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Adderall® in popular culture
Juicy J, Deez Bitches Rollin (2011) lyrics:
“College hoes love alcohol, and poppin Adderall”
(click on lyric to play)
Video was not exported from SlideRocket

Adderall® Twitter cloud,
02/16/12-03/27/12
adderall [1068] xr [144] need [97] sorrynotsorryy [52] taking [51
] online [51] coffee [49] buy [49]day [47] take [45] sleep [41] mu
ch [39] qah8wi9p [37] love [33] makes [31] college [30] out [30]
took [29]shit [29] one [29] right [28] alive [28] more [27] night [2
7] days [27] consider [27] misery [26] wish [26]alcohol [25] oscar
s [25] charmofthesouth [25] time [24] life [24] ve [23] know [23]
]
Source: actionly.com

Adderall® Observations
The vast majority of mentions were contained in
"Tweets".
There was a sharp drop in the number of "Adderall®"
mentions on all three networks during the first 2 weeks
of March, possibly coincident with Spring Break.
Conversely, there was a sharp increase in "Adderall®"
mentions on the three networks in the latter half of
March.
Review of individual messages revealed a "mixed bag" of
message types, including lyrics, online pharmacies,
partying, studying, and house cleaning.

Adderall® Observations, cont.
There were few messages characterized as "positive", and even
fewer characterized as "negative". The basis for these
characterizations by the data provider was not clear.
Online pharmacies advertising sale of the drug without a
prescription were consistently among the "top Tweeters",
generating high volumes of messages to low volumes of
followers.
There was no clear evidence in this snapshot of Social Media
being used for illicit sale of the drug. The online pharmacies
had high volume output, but limited reach.
It appears that Adderall® has become a euphemism for
ADD/ADHD stereotypes, alertness, studying, and staying awake
for various reasons. Less frequently it is spoken of in terms of
sexual enhancement and 'partying'.

Results: OxyContin®
21

OxyContin® Twitter cloud,
02/16/12-03/27/12
oxycontin [1038] ontario [197] addiction [117] drug [107] health [
100] funding [90] news [86]experts [84] canada [79] first [73] nati
ons [70] others [66] replacement [64] painkiller [63] follow[63] pr
ovinces [61] lead [59] crisis [57] withdrawal [53] pulled [53] leade
r [49] delisting [48] warns [46]disaster [44] expect [43] fund [43] f
eared [42] pain [41] new [41] mass [40] drugs [37] nova [34] scoti
a [34]abuse [34] out [33]
Source: actionly.com

OxyContin® mentions showed lower degree of
variability than with Adderall®, in both volume and
context.
The volume of OxyContin® mentions increased
modestly with two main news stories during the
study period:
- During coverage of the Limbaugh/Fluke controversy;
and
- Surrounding the withdrawal of OxyContin® from the
Canadian market.
27
OxyContin® Observations

The majority of OxyContin® mentions were in the
context of concurrent news stories.
Although there were some online pharmacies
advertising sale of the drug without a prescription,
there were far fewer than with Adderall®, in both
absolute volume, and as a percentage of the total
volume.
28
OxyContin® Observations, cont.

There is no demographic information available to help classify
or stratify data sources.
Selection biases: Is this a "random" sample?
These posts were written for public consumption. How does
this context affect the data? Can reliable inferences be drawn?
Can standard observational research methods be adapted for
Social Media data sources?
What can be done to validate the data? What other data would
improve validity and reliability?
Is the data relevant to the research being conducted?
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Overall Observations: Methodological Issues

Are existing Ethics Review procedures of study protocols
adequate to fully vet protocols of research involving Social
Media data sources?
Is informed consent of subjects necessary, given that the
data is generated in and collected from a public venue?
What are the ethical duties of the Social Media sites and the
secondary data aggregators?
Is there a duty to intervene on the part of the researchers,
and if so where does it lie and how should it be executed?
Are findings from such research sufficiently reliable and valid
to draw inferences?
30
Overall Observations: Some Ethical Issues

There is a myriad of privacy issues that need to be addressed
that are beyond the scope of this discussion.
Before continuing with further clinical, epidemiological, or
other scientific research using social networking data sources,
some of the important issues are:
Explicit privacy policies of the data provider- in this project,
none could be found on their websites;
Implicit privacy expectations of the data sources;
Local policies & procedures of the investigators related to
gathering and handling the data;
Issues of inferences drawn from un-blinded data: are the
investigators subject to libel/slander charges?
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Overall Observations: Privacy Issues

Source: Snyder, J: How to Use Social Media for Market Research. (March 28, 2012) Converseon
URL: http://blog.converseon.com/author/jasper-snyder/
In a March 28, 2012 blog post, author Jasper Snyder noted, "Being able to extract this
meaning is a challenge – it’s not easy to do – but it represents a significant opportunity for
market researchers to gain competitive advantage." While his comments were directed
towards a Market Research audience, the underlying principle are relevant to this discussion.
His approach can help the investigator in ensuring that the data is from the relevant people,
discussing the relevant issues. This approach can be a solid foundation from which to begin. To
start, he suggests exploration of the following questions:
• First, at the research level, you can choose to only include messages in your analysis that
are posted by the people whose opinions you’re interested in. The way you define groups
of people here may in fact map to your existing customer segmentation taxonomy.
• Second, you could choose to ‘listen’ only in those venues where the audience whose
opinion you’re interested in is likely to be engaging.
• Third, you can make sure that you’re only including in your analysis messages where your
product (in this case OxyContin®, Adderral®) is being talked about in a relevant context.
32
Future Directions

Social media research project final

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