Tiktok Medical Advice!?

Do you look for medical advice on Tiktok? If so, listen up.

Plushcare’s medical professionals conducted research recently and according to them, nearly 84 percent of all mental health advice shared (by anyone) on TikTok is misleading in nature.

Using the hashtags #mentalhealthadvice and #mentalhealthtips, the team went through hundreds of videos and their transcripts and discovered that 14.2 percent of videos discussing mental health on TikTok could actually be potentially damaging.

Worryingly, an entire batch of videos talking about ADHD (Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder) was found to have misleading health content.

Over 90% of videos discussing bipolar disorder and depression were labeled by the research team as “highly misleading”.

In fact, the research found that a mere 9 percent of TikTok content creators had any relevant qualification to even give out mental health advise, and only 1 percent of the videos, which is very low, were found to contain any necessary disclaimers.

What experts say is that users should pay attention to any labels/prompts that warn about the social media content’s truthfulness and in absence of that, it’s a good practice to check the creator’s profile and their content track record to avoid amplifying any dubious content.