Analysis of the supportive care needs of the parents of preterm children in South Korea using big data text-mining: Topic modeling

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to identify the supportive care needs of parents of preterm children in South Korea using text data from a portal site.

Methods

In total, 628 online newspaper articles and 1,966 social network service posts published between January 1 and December 31, 2019 were analyzed. The procedures in this study were conducted in the following order: keyword selection, data collection, morpheme analysis, keyword analysis, and topic modeling.

Results

The term “yirundung-yi”, which is a native Korean word referring to premature infants, was confirmed to be a useful term for parents. The following four topics were identified as the supportive care needs of parents of preterm children: 1) a vague fear of caring for a baby upon imminent neonatal intensive care unit discharge, 2) real-world difficulties encountered while caring for preterm children, 3) concerns about growth and development problems, and 4) anxiety about possible complications.

Conclusion

Supportive care interventions for parents of preterm children should include general parenting methods for babies. A team composed of multidisciplinary experts must support the individual growth and development of preterm children and manage the complications of prematurity using highly accessible media.