Abstract
Objectives: To evaluate the bullying in individuals with cleft lip
and/or palate (CLP) by Twitter analysis. Materials and Methods:
Twitter’s advanced search function was used while the term ‘cleft lip
and palate’ was kept constant, and the selected keywords were ‘bully’,
‘bullying’, ‘bullied’ and ‘teased’. A total of 150 tweets that met the
criteria were selected. The data were qualitatively evaluated by
thematic analysis and the themes were determined based on this analysis.
Results: Most of the tweets were posted by a layperson (76%). Also,
nearly half of the tweets were categorized in the theme ‘personal
experience of being bullied’ (43%). The tweets were distributed
according to their uploader status as CLP subjects (46%), irrelevant
individuals (28%), and parents of CLP subjects’ (26%). Of the 150
tweets evaluated, 74 were identified as negative, while 25 were
identified as neutral and 51 as positive. No significant differences
were detected in retweet and like numbers between negative, neutral, and
positive comments (P > .05). Conclusions: This is the first
study in the literature regarding the bullying suffered by individuals
with CLP using Twitter data. Twitter is a social media platform for
bullying victims with CLP to share their experiences and seek for social
support.