Adverse effect

Scope (computer science)

Mathematics

Medical education

Knowledge management

Pharmacovigilance

Web application

Internet privacy

The Internet

Web 2.0

World Wide Web

Political science

Programming language

Data science

Geometry

Public relations

Computer science

Social media

Product (mathematics)

Medicine

Pharmacology

Drug Safety

Over a period of 3 years, the European Union's Innovative Medicines Initiative WEB-RADR project has explored the value of social media (i.e., information exchanged through the internet, typically via online social networks) for identifying adverse events as well as for safety signal detection. Many patients and clinicians have taken to social media to discuss their positive and negative experiences of medications, creating a source of publicly available information that has the potential to provide insights into medicinal product safety concerns. The WEB-RADR project has developed a collaborative English language workspace for visualising and analysing social media data for a number of medicinal products. Further, novel text and data mining methods for social media analysis have been developed and evaluated. From this original research, several recommendations are presented with supporting rationale and consideration of the limitations. Recommendations for further research that extend beyond the scope of the current project are also presented.

Recommendations for the Use of Social Media in Pharmacovigilance: Lessons from IMI WEB-RADR