Uncovering Healthcare Concerns Among Bangladeshi Patients Seeking Medical Care in India Using BERTopic

Social media has become an important source of health information and peer support for patients seeking medical treatment. This study aimed to identify and characterize the major information needs, healthcare concerns, and discussion themes of Bangladeshi patients seeking medical treatment in India. This study examines the main discussion themes within two Facebook communities, “CMC Hospital Vellore Treatment Community Bangladesh” and “Bangladesh Treatment Community for Indian Treatment”. Data were scraped from publicly available Facebook posts (n = 1500) using web scraping. BERTopic was applied to analyze the data. This pattern yielded 28 interpretable topics, with coherence scores from 0.2990 to 0.8905. The results also found conversations regarding cardiovascular diseases, kidney diseases, neurological disorders, cancer, infertility, spinal disorders, ophthalmic disorders, liver diseases, gynecological disorders, and gastrointestinal diseases. Additionally, several other non-medical themes were noted, viz., treatment expenses, accommodation, travel, and procurement of medicines, as well as tourism planning, indicating the practical difficulties encountered by patients in a foreign country when seeking healthcare in India. The results reveal that in addition to being a source of medical information, these Facebook groups act as support networks in which patients turn for helpful advice such as what to expect, share personal experiences, and seek emotional support. The findings may assist researchers, clinical teams, and policymakers to gain insights into the information needs of cross-border patients, helping to enhance the provision of patient-centred healthcare services.