Maintenance Notice

Due to necessary scheduled maintenance, the JMIR Publications website will be unavailable from Wednesday, July 01, 2020 at 8:00 PM to 10:00 PM EST. We apologize in advance for any inconvenience this may cause you.

Who will be affected?

Currently submitted to: Journal of Medical Internet Research

Date Submitted: Jan 15, 2025
Open Peer Review Period: Jan 15, 2025 - Mar 12, 2025
(currently open for review)

Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.

Post-traumatic stress disorder on TikTok: A cross-sectional analysis of popular #PTSD content quality

  • Brittany Rohl; 
  • Laura Carolyn Jones; 
  • Rachel Nattis; 
  • Robert Claar; 
  • Xavier Valez; 
  • Joy Gabrielli; 
  • John Bonar Williamson; 
  • Eric Porges

ABSTRACT

Background:

Attentional problems are a non-specific symptom that occurs in both Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A recent study reported that over 50% of the most-popular content on TikTok under the hashtag #ADHD was classified as misleading (Yeung et al., 2022). TikTok’s growth during the COVID-19 pandemic, its role as a source of social support during periods of social isolation, and the tendency for individuals to research their symptoms online before seeking treatment raise the question of how accurate PTSD-related content is in conveying information about symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment (Şot, 2023).

Objective:

The aim of the current study was to characterize the accuracy, understandability, and actionability of PTSD-related TikTok content.

Methods:

We conducted a search on TikTok using the hashtag #PTSD and retrieved the 100 most-liked videos. Metadata (e.g., views, shares) were collected using the publicly available Python package TiktokPy. Videos were independently coded by two reviewers for the overall accuracy of the video (classified as useful, personal experience, or misleading), whether the creator self-identified as a healthcare professional (HCP), symptoms mentioned, and overall video understandability and actionability using the Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool for Audiovisual Materials (PEMAT-AV).

Results:

Approximately one-third of the most-popular TikTok content related to PTSD contained misleading information. The accuracy of PTSD-related information was not associated with its understandability, actionability, or user engagement. Videos created by self-identified HCPs were more likely to contain useful information than those created by non-HCPs; however, HCPs accounted for 32% of the content classified as misleading.

Conclusions:

TikTok’s algorithmically determined, adaptive content delivery method has the potential to inundate users with non-specific mental health information, even without explicit searches for such content. This system may incentivize the distribution of highly salient or unique content, which may not necessarily align with accuracy. These factors could influence patients’ interpretations of their symptoms and ultimately their clinical presentations. Clinicians should be aware of the digital landscape surrounding the conditions they treat to provide informed care.


 Citation

Please cite as:

Rohl B, Jones LC, Nattis R, Claar R, Valez X, Gabrielli J, Williamson JB, Porges E

Post-traumatic stress disorder on TikTok: A cross-sectional analysis of popular #PTSD content quality

JMIR Preprints. 15/01/2025:71209

DOI: 10.2196/preprints.71209

URL: https://preprints.jmir.org/preprint/71209

Download PDF


Request queued. Please wait while the file is being generated. It may take some time.

© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.