Epilepsy-related romantic and sexual relationship problems and concerns: Indications from Internet message boards

- The quality of romantic and sexual relationships is associated with quality of life and recovery from illness.
- The areas of romantic and sexual relationships have been understudied in persons with epilepsy.
- We analyzed a data set of message board posts from people with epilepsy to reveal romantic/sexual-related concerns.
- Five categories related to romantic and sexual relationships among message board users were revealed from the analysis.
- Findings suggest the need to assess the areas of romantic and sexual relationship satisfaction in persons with epilepsy.

The objective of this study was to, utilizing a Big Data set and innovative methods, explore romantic and sexual relationship-related concerns among people with epilepsy and their partners. We applied Word Adjacency Graph modeling to more than 2000 message board posts, and five distinct categories of romantic and sexual relationship-related concerns emerged. We conclude that persons with epilepsy are at particular risk for the experience of decrements in their romantic and sexual relationships, which can negatively impact their self-management and overall health.