Introduction: Large databases of clinician reported (e.g., allergy repositories) and patient reported (e.g., social media) adverse drug reactions (ADRs) exist; however, whether patients and clinicians report the same concerns is not clear.
Objectives: Our objective was to compare electronic health record data and social media data to better understand differences and similarities between clinician-reported ADRs and patients' concerns regarding aspirin and atorvastatin.
Methods: This pilot study explored a large repository of electronic health record data and social media data for clinician-reported ADRs and patients concerns for two common medications: aspirin (n = 31,817 ADRs accessible in clinical data; n = 19,186 potential ADRs accessible in social media data) and atorvastatin (n = 15,047 ADRs accessible in clinical data; n = 23,408 potential ADRs accessible in social media data).
Results: We found that the most frequently reported ADRs matched the most frequent patients' concerns. However, several less frequently reported reactions were more prevalent on social media (i.e., aspirin-induced hypoglycemia was discussed only on social media). Overall, we found a relatively strong positive and statistically significant correlation between the frequency ranking of reactions and patients' concerns for atorvastatin (Pearson's r = 0.61, p < 0.001) but not for aspirin (Pearson's r = 0.1, p = 0.69).
Conclusion: Future studies should develop further natural language methods for a more detailed data analysis (i.e., identifying causality and temporal aspects in the social media data).