TikTok’s most popular videos on ADHD are as likely to misinform viewers as they are to provide helpful hints, a new study says.
More than half the claims made in the 100 most-viewed TikTok videos about attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are not accurate, researchers reported in the journal PLOS One.
Unfortunately, college students are more likely to rate videos containing bad information as accurate and recommend them to others, results show.
"TikTok can be an incredible tool for raising awareness and reducing stigma, but it also has a downside," lead researcher Vasileia Karasavva, a doctoral student in clinical psychology at the University of British Columbia, said in a news release.
"Anecdotes and personal experiences are powerful, but when they lack context, they can lead to misunderstandings about ADHD and mental health in general,” Karasavva added.
For the study, researchers identified the 100 most popular TikTok videos with the #ADHD hashtag, and had two clinical psychologists who are ADHD experts review the video’s claims.
“The creators of the top 100 #ADHD TikTok videos regularly contributed such content; almost 80% had posted multiple videos discussing ADHD,” researchers wrote in their paper.
The psychologists judged that only about 49% of the claims made in the TikTok videos were accurate based on diagnostic guidelines for ADHD, the study says.
In their next step, researchers surveyed nearly 850 college undergrads about their TikTok #ADHD viewing habits. Nearly 200 of the students had a formal diagnosis of ADHD, and more than 400 had self-diagnosed the disorder.
Students either formally or self-diagnosed with ADHD watched TikToks on the subject more often than those without ADHD, researchers found.
In addition, the more ADHD-related TikToks a young adult watched, the more likely they were to overestimate how often ADHD symptoms occur in the general population and how severe these symptoms are.
“TikTok’s anecdotal content could lead some viewers to misattribute normal behaviors or those better explained by other conditions to be signs of ADHD, complicating an already challenging differential diagnosis and treatment process,” researchers wrote.
The research team showed the undergrads the top 5 and bottom 5 videos rated for accuracy by the psychologists, and asked which videos the young adults would recommend to others.
Students who frequently watched #ADHD TikToks were more likely to say that they would recommend both the top five and bottom five videos to others, results show:
Clinical psychologists gave the more accurate ADHD videos an average rating of 3.6 out of five, while young adults gave them 2.8.
The psychologists rated the least reliable videos at 1.1 out of five. Young adults rated them significantly higher at 2.3.
Researchers said that students might find average people talking about their ADHD issues on TikTok more approachable than a psychologist dispassionately discussing the subject, even if those anecdotes aren’t accurate.
“Young adults may value the relatability, genuineness, and vulnerability of discussing one’s lived experiences more than the academic background of a content creator,” researchers wrote. “Approachable TikTok content may contrast with ‘colder’ and harder-to-access information from empirical journal articles and clinicians.”
Mental health professionals should be prepared to respond to people who seek an ADHD diagnosis based on bad information they got from a TikTok, researchers said.
“It may be important for professionals to listen to patients’ experiences with ADHD information on social media and to hear about what patients have found valuable in this information,” researchers wrote.