TikTok and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: A Cross-Sectional Study of Social Media Content Quality

Summary & key facts

The study examined the 100 most popular English TikTok videos tagged #ADHD (searched July 18, 2021). Raters classified videos as useful, personal experience, or misleading and found that about half were misleading. Videos were generally easy to understand but gave little actionable guidance, and healthcare providers’ videos tended to be higher quality than those from non-healthcare uploaders.

Key facts:

• The researchers reviewed the top 100 TikTok videos for #ADHD on July 18, 2021.
• 52 of the 100 videos (52%) were classified as misleading.
• 27 videos (27%) were classified as personal experience, and 21 videos (21%) were classified as useful.
• The two clinician raters agreed on video classification 86% of the time (kappa = 0.7766).
• Videos scored high for understandability but low for actionability on the PEMAT-A/V assessment.
• Most misleading videos were uploaded by non-healthcare providers; healthcare providers uploaded higher-quality and more useful videos.
• The study used the TikTok algorithm to select the most popular videos and excluded non-English videos, videos without audio or text, unrelated videos, and duplicates, so the sample reflects the most-viewed English content at that time, not

Abstract

Approximately half of the analyzed TikTok videos about ADHD were misleading. Clinicians should be aware of the widespread dissemination of health misinformation on social media platforms and its potential impact on clinical care.

Topics

Digital Mental Health Interventions Health Literacy and Information Accessibility Mobile Health and mHealth Applications

Categories

General Health Professions Health Professions Health Sciences

Tags

Computer science Computer security Economic growth Economics Epistemology Health care Internet privacy Medical education Medicine Mental health Misinformation Philosophy Psychiatry Psychology Quality (philosophy) Social media Upload World Wide Web