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Abstract
Introduction There are currently no published studies using patient reviews of pain physicians to quantitatively assess patient preferences for pain physician attributes. The aim of the present study was to use natural language processing to quantitatively analyze patient reviews of pain physicians by determining the effect of physician demographics and word frequency on positive review outcomes.
Methods Using a peer-reviewed algorithm, online Healthgrades reviews of pain physicians practicing in the USA were scored according to their positive sentiment from −1 to 1. These sentiment scores and star ratings were used to compare physicians by age, gender and region of practice. Frequency analysis of words and bigrams was performed for all reviews.
Results There were 15 101 reviews collected among 1275 pain physicians which showed male physicians received higher star ratings and review sentiment scores than female physicians. Pain physicians younger than 55 years received higher star ratings and sentiment scores than those of 55 years and older. Frequency analysis revealed that words most commonly used in the more positive patient reviews included ‘care’, ‘professional’, ‘patient’, ‘help’ and ‘kind’; the words most commonly used in less positive reviews included ‘pain’, ‘back’, ‘office’, ‘time’ and ‘years’.
Conclusions Male and/or younger pain physicians receive more positive reviews. Patients highly rate pain physicians who are perceived as personable. Patients lowly rate physicians who are perceived as providing ineffective treatment of their pain as well as when they experience barriers to their access to care.
- Pain Medicine
- Outcome Assessment, Health Care
- OUTCOMES
- TECHNOLOGY
Data availability statement
Data are available upon reasonable request. Please contact Christopher P Cheng at christopher.cheng@icahn.mssm.edu to see the 15 101 patient reviews of pain physicians that were collected from Healthgrades for this investigation.
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Data availability statement
Data are available upon reasonable request. Please contact Christopher P Cheng at christopher.cheng@icahn.mssm.edu to see the 15 101 patient reviews of pain physicians that were collected from Healthgrades for this investigation.
Footnotes
X @chrispcheng, @alopipatelmd
Correction notice This article has been corrected since it published Online First. The section heading has been changed to Chronic and Interventional Pain.
Contributors CPC, TO, PS, and AP collectively conceived the study. CPC conducted data retrieval, coding, and analysis. CPC, TO, PS, and AP all contributed to drafting and preparation of the manuscript. CPC acts as a guarantor for all activities of this study.
Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Competing interests None declared.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
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