Objective: This study explored the needs of caregivers of children with allergic diseases by analyzing text of questions posted on social networking services (SNS).

Methods: Questions assumed to have been asked by caregivers about childhood allergies were extracted from Yahoo! Chiebukuro data (provided by the National Institute of Informatics) and analyzed using text mining techniques.

Results: From a total of approximately 2.7 million questions, 707 were selected by keyword search and direct review by 3 researchers, and words were extracted by morphological analysis. In simple tabulation, many of the words were related to skin and diet. In multidimensional scaling methods, these words and respiratory symptoms-related words were distributed around words related to treatment and those that seek answers. When the words were categorized into hypothesized concepts by code definitions, the concepts that frequently appeared were those relating to anxiety/questioning and hospital visits, followed by skin symptoms. In co-occurrence network analysis, the anxiety/questioning and hospital visit concepts were connected to each other with skin symptoms, atopy, diet, environment, sleep, family relationships, and social life. Respiratory-related concepts strongly co-occurred with each other and weakly with other concept groups.

Conclusion: Caregivers' needs posted to SNS may be high for skin issues related to various aspects of life.