Analysis of Reddit Reveals Dupilumab Questions Among Atopic Dermatitis Patients

Social media is an emerging piece of the chronic disease management puzzle. Given the speed, accessibility, and convenience of the Internet, patients are increasingly consulting the web to source medical information. In fact, research reveals that patients search the Internet more frequently than they communicate with their doctors to ask healthcare questions.¹ Beyond simple search engine queries, patients are using social media to connect and converse with communities of people who share similar problems, both to exchange clinical information and find social support.² These peer-driven virtual communities are found across a wide variety of social media platforms, such as Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter, and have proven to be popular among patients with chronic disease.³

Reddit, the seventh most visited website in the US, has become a central hub for discussing disease, especially chronic conditions.⁴ The website is organized into millions of discussion boards, or "subreddits," dedicated to discussing specific topics. Atopic dermatitis (AD) patients, in particular, have formed very active and engaged social media communities, with Reddit containing several subreddits dedicated to AD topics. With the FDA approval of dupilumab (Dupixent^®) in 2017, the therapeutic has generated patient discussions online.⁵ In response, patients founded the "eczeMABs" subreddit, a forum devoted to discussing monoclonal antibody (mAb) therapy for AD. Patients visit this subreddit to share dupilumab experiences, find social support, and source medical information. This cross-sectional assessment aims to uncover AD patients’ dupilumab-related questions as this insight may help physicians better address patient needs.

The authors analyzed all 262 questions posted on the "eczeMABs" subreddit, which has approximately 1,700 subscribers, as of October 21st, 2020. The username, title, text, comments, and number of upvotes associated with each post were recorded.⁶ Each dupilumab-related question was placed into one of the categories: "side effects," "usage instructions," "general experience," "efficacy," "costs and insurance," "concurrent use with other medical interventions," "obtaining prescription," "timeline for symptom improvement," and "miscellaneous." Non-dupilumab mAb-related content was placed in the "other monoclonal antibodies" category. Posts not containing questions or mAb-related content were excluded. Redundant questions written within the same post were also excluded.