Leveraging Reddit for Suicidal Ideation Detection: A Review of Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing Techniques

Abstract

Suicide is a major public-health problem that exists in virtually every part of the world. Hundreds of thousands of people commit suicide every year. The early detection of suicidal ideation is critical for suicide prevention. However, there are challenges associated with conventional suicide-risk screening methods. At the same time, individuals contemplating suicide are increasingly turning to social media and online forums, such as Reddit, to express their feelings and share their struggles with suicidal thoughts. This prompted research that applies machine learning and natural language processing techniques to detect suicidality among social media and forum users. The objective of this paper is to investigate methods employed to detect suicidal ideations on the Reddit forum. To achieve this objective, we conducted a literature review of the recent articles detailing machine learning and natural language processing techniques applied to Reddit data to detect the presence of suicidal ideations. Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines, we selected 26 recent studies, published between 2018 and 2022. The findings of the review outline the prevalent methods of data collection, data annotation, data preprocessing, feature engineering, model development, and evaluation. Furthermore, we present several Reddit-based datasets utilized to construct suicidal ideation detection models. Finally, we conclude by discussing the current limitations and future directions in the research of suicidal ideation detection.

Keywords: machine learning; natural language processing; suicidal ideation detection; text mining.

Figure 1

Study selection flowchart based on PRISMA guidelines.