Unpacking College Students' Mental Health Discourse through YouTube Comments: Insights from Topic Modeling and Sentiment Analysis

Many college students experience mental health challenges and actively utilize social media platforms, such as YouTube, for informational and social support. Despite its popularity, there is limited understanding of the specific mental health-related topics that young adults discuss on YouTube and how users engage with them. This study employed topic modeling, sentiment analysis, and statistical techniques to analyze comments on YouTube videos pertaining to college students' mental health. Our primary objective was to identify prevalent topics, sentiments, and their associations with user engagement. We found that situational topics (e.g., parents, schools) addressing their mental health challenges were mostly negative and associated with greater engagement from the community than other topics. Our findings provide insights into the perceptions and discussions surrounding college students' mental health issues within the broader online community and have implications for clinical practice.