Article Synopsis
- TikTok has over 1 billion active users globally, but there is limited data on how they seek mental health content on the platform.
- The study analyzes the top 1,000 TikTok videos tagged with #mentalhealth to identify content themes and assess the accuracy of the information shared, revealing that personal stories are the most common.
- Approximately 33% of the advice and information in these videos was deemed misleading, highlighting the need for more evidence-based resources and efforts to combat misinformation in mental health discourse on TikTok.
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Article Abstract
Background: TikTok is a global social media platform with over 1 billion active users. Presently, there are few data on how TikTok users navigate the platform for mental health purposes and the content they view.
Objective: This study aims to understand the patterns of mental health-related content on TikTok and assesses the accuracy and quality of the advice and information provided.
Methods: We performed a summative content analysis on the top 1000 TikTok videos with the hashtag #mentalhealth between October 12 and 16, 2021. Six content themes were developed to code the data: (1) a personal story, perspective, or confessional, (2) advice and information, (3) emoting, (4) references to death, (5) references to science or research, and (6) a product or service for sale. Advice and information were further assessed by clinical experts.
Results: A total of 970 mental health-related videos were pulled for our analysis ( = 30 removed due to non-English content). The most prevalent content themes included a personal story, perspective, or confessional ( = 574), advice and information ( = 319), emoting ( = 198), references to death ( = 128). Advice and information were considered misleading in 33.0% of videos ( = 106), with misleading content performing better. Few videos included references to scientific evidence or research ( = 37).
Conclusion: Healthcare practitioners and researchers may consider increasing their presence on the platform to promote the dissemination of evidence-based information to a wider and more youth-targeted population. Interventions to reduce the amount of misinformation on the platform and increase people's ability to discern between anecdotal and evidence-based information are also warranted.
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| http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11748085 | PMC |
| http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/20552076241297062 | DOI Listing |
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