Objective:
To assess the accuracy of mental health and neurodivergence-related content on social media platforms.
Key Findings:
- Misinformation prevalence ranged from 0% to 57% across platforms and topics, with TikTok showing higher rates than YouTube.
- Mean misinformation rate was 26%, with TikTok showing higher rates than YouTube, including 52% for ADHD-related videos and 41% for autism-related content.
- Autism-related content had misinformation rates of 40% to 41%, while postpartum depression content had lower rates of 3% to 8%.
- On YouTube, misinformation ranged from 7% for dissociative identity disorder content to 57% for magnetic resonance imaging claustrophobia, with a mean of 22%.
- Facebook content showed a mean prevalence of 15%, while one study of X reported 19%.
- Content produced by professionals was generally more reliable than that from nonprofessionals.
Interpretation:
The review highlights significant variability in the accuracy of mental health content across different social media platforms, emphasizing the need for improved content moderation and standardized definitions of misinformation.
Limitations:
- Heterogeneity in platforms, topics, and evaluation methods.
- Many studies evaluated content in a single language.
- Variability in study quality and definitions of misinformation, with an average rating of about 65% and values ranging from approximately 41% to 80%.
Conclusion:
There is a critical need for strengthened content moderation and consistent measures of mental health misinformation across social media platforms.
This content is an AI-generated, fully rewritten summary based on a published scholarly article. It does not reproduce the original text and is not a substitute for the original publication. Readers are encouraged to consult the source for full context, data, and methodology.