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reddit-refractive-surgery

Tasks:
Text Classification
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English
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10K<n<100K
Tags:
medical
health
nlp
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metadata 
task_categories:
  - text-classification
language:
  - en
tags:
  - medical
  - health
  - nlp
size_categories:
  - 10K<n<100K
license: cc-by-nc-4.0
pretty_name: Reddit LASIK Communities Dataset

Dataset Card for Reddit LASIK Communities Dataset

Dataset Summary

This dataset contains posts and comments from LASIK-related Reddit communities (primarily r/lasik and r/LasikSupport). It was created to support research on patient experiences, community support dynamics, and medical discourse in online health communities.

The dataset includes approximately 1,983 posts and over 27,000 comments. It captures discussions about laser eye surgery experiences, pre-operative concerns, post-operative outcomes, and peer support exchanges.

Versioning:

  • v1: Raw data as collected from Reddit (in English).
  • Future versions may include translations to Spanish or other processing steps.

Primary use cases:

  • Sentiment analysis of patient experiences
  • Topic modeling of healthcare discussions
  • Natural language processing research on informal medical discourse
  • Longitudinal studies of online health communities
  • Analysis of patient decision-making and information-seeking behavior

Languages: English

Dataset Structure

Data Instances

The dataset consists of two separate CSV files:

Posts dataset example:

{
  "post_id": "abc123",
  "subreddit": "lasik",
  "author": "username",
  "title": "2 weeks post-op update",
  "selftext": "My experience so far...",
  "score": 15,
  "num_comments": 8,
  "timestamp": 123456789
}

Comments dataset example:

{
  "comment_id": "def456",
  "post_id": "abc123",
  "author": "username",
  "text": "Thanks for sharing your experience...",
  "score": 5,
  "depth": 1,
  "timestamp": 123456789
}

Data Fields

Posts Dataset

  • post_id: Unique identifier for the post
  • subreddit: Source subreddit (lasik or LasikSupport)
  • author: Reddit username (pseudonym)
  • title: Post title
  • selftext: Post body text
  • url: External URL (if link post)
  • score: Net upvote score
  • upvote_ratio: Ratio of upvotes to total votes
  • num_comments: Number of comments on the post
  • timestamp: Unix timestamp
  • permalink: Reddit URL to the post
  • link_flair_text: Post flair/category
  • edited: Boolean indicating if edited
  • locked: Boolean indicating if locked

Comments Dataset

  • comment_id: Unique identifier for the comment
  • post_id: ID of parent post
  • parent_id: ID of parent comment (if reply)
  • author: Reddit username (pseudonym)
  • text: Comment text content
  • score: Net upvote score
  • timestamp: Unix timestamp
  • edited: Boolean indicating if edited
  • depth: Comment nesting level in thread
  • controversiality: Reddit controversy score
  • permalink: Reddit URL to the comment
  • is_submitter: Boolean indicating if author is original poster
  • subreddit: Source subreddit

Data Splits

No predefined splits are provided. Researchers can create custom splits based on:

  • Temporal: Pre/post specific dates (e.g., 2020)
  • Community: r/lasik vs r/LasikSupport
  • Random: Standard train/validation/test splits for ML tasks

Dataset Creation

Source Data

Data Collection

The data was collected from publicly available Reddit posts and comments using the Reddit API and/or Pushshift API. The collection targeted LASIK-related subreddits.

Collection timeframe: [2025] Collection method: Automated retrieval via Python scripts using API wrappers (praw/Pushshift)

Data Processing

Preprocessing steps:

  1. Converted Unix timestamps to human-readable dates
  2. Removed exact duplicate entries
  3. Preserved original text without spelling/grammar corrections
  4. Standardized metadata fields across subreddits
  5. Retained deleted/removed content markers

Software used: Python 3.x with pandas, praw

Annotations

No manual annotations are included. Labels for sentiment, topics, or other tasks should be derived programmatically or added by researchers.

Considerations for Using the Data

Social Impact and Biases

  • Self-selection bias: Users who post online may not represent all LASIK patients

  • Platform bias: Reddit demographics skew younger and more tech-savvy

  • Negativity bias: Users with complications may be overrepresented

  • Temporal bias: Medical practices and outcomes evolve over time

  • Geographic bias: Predominantly English-speaking, likely US-centric

  • All data is publicly available on Reddit

  • Usernames are not anonymized, as they do not map to real names. The dataset is non-commercial, and if a user requests removal of their post or comment, it can be deleted without issue.

  • Posts and comments may contain self-disclosed personal medical information

  • Some content includes emotional testimonies about negative surgical outcomes

  • Privacy consideration: While data is public, researchers should avoid attempting to reidentify users +- For more details, see Reddit's Public Content Policy. This dataset is for research purposes only and must not be used for any commercial activity. As it is for research according to the terms of reddit we can publish it with the usernames but in case the user deletes the post or their account we will delete it from out dataset too

Limitations<>

  • Missing data: Deleted/removed content appears as empty text or selftext fields
  • Duplicates: Edited content may appear multiple times if retrieved at different timestamps
  • External links: URLs in content may no longer be active
  • No ground truth: Medical accuracy of claims is not verified
  • Temporal coverage: May have gaps depending on API availability
  • The dataset is limited to a one-year time window.
  • We cannot guarantee that all user-generated content is 100% truthful; this is an assumption for the purposes of this research.

How to Use

Loading the Dataset 

import pandas as pd
comments = pd.read_csv('Dataset/reddit_lasik_comments.csv')
posts = pd.read_csv('Dataset/reddit_lasik_posts.csv')

License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) — For academic use only.

Citation

If you use this dataset in your research, please cite:

@misc{yingying_zhu_2025,
  author       = { YINGYING ZHU and XueRong Chen and Rafia Khayrullaeva },
  title        = { reddit-refractive-surgery (Revision 7982487) },
  year         = 2025,
  url          = { https://huggingface.co/datasets/Pandita-IA/reddit-refractive-surgery },
  doi          = { https://doi.org/10.57967/hf/6739 },
  publisher    = { Hugging Face }
}

Contributions

Dataset compiled and maintained by [upm_cdia_group]. For questions, issues, or contributions, please contact: [yingying.zhu@alumnos.upm.es] or open an issue in the dataset repository.

Acknowledgements

We thank the Reddit communities r/lasik and r/LasikSupport for openly sharing their experiences and creating supportive spaces for LASIK patients. This dataset would not be possible without their contributions.

Ethical Considerations

This dataset is intended for research purposes only. Researchers using this dataset should:

  • Respect the privacy of community members
  • Avoid attempts to reidentify users
  • Consider the sensitive nature of medical information
  • Follow their institution's IRB guidelines when applicable
  • Comply with Reddit's API Terms of Use

Updates and Maintenance

Current version: 1.0 Maintenance status: No regular updates planned

For the most current information, visit the dataset repository on Hugging Face.