Comparing Automatically Extracted Topics from Online Mental Health Disorder Forums

Mental health disorders may share similar symptoms which make differentiating between them for the purposes of diagnosis a difficult task. Bipolar Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder have been shown to fall into this category. Based on the language used by Reddit.com users in forums dedicated to each of these disorders, as well as forums dedicated to the loved ones of individuals with these disorders, we identify differences that may increase accuracy of diagnosis. We use natural language processing techniques to automatically identify informal topics and patterns in the language extracted from these forums that can be analyzed in a comparative way. We find that there are significant differences in the language used in these different forums that could be applicable to diagnostic protocols.