Attitudes towards TikTok from individuals with ADHD and ADHD Professionals: Social Media Content Quality and Utility.

Social media is now a commonly used tool to gather health information, with young people being social media’s main user base (Perrin, 2015). Health information on social media can be easily disseminated to a large audience, without barriers to access such as cost and geography that exist in traditional, face-to-face healthcare. These barriers are particularly salient to young people, who are often completely reliant on their parents to access both information and treatment (Tully et al., 2019). Social media is seen as an attractive way to access health information by young people, as they can do so confidentially, and view it as a way to get support from their peers (Lupton, 2021). Social media therefore presents a way for young people to easily and independently access health information, as it is readily available, and on a platform, they enjoy using. One of the largest current social media platforms being used by young people is TikTok. TikTok is a short-form video sharing app highly utilised by young people, with 41% of the user-base being between the ages of 16 and 24 (Comp et al., 2020). TikTok content is largely generated by peer-to-peer sharing of information, and stands out from other social media platforms for the sense of community that users often feel when using the app (Milton et al., 2023). Mental health content has become extremely popular on TikTok (Milton et al., 2023; Basch et al., 2022). Of the top 100 videos on TikTok containing #mentalhealth, 84% were consumer generated, and 40% of those were based on personal experience (Basch et al., 2022). Videos related to attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder have become particularly popular on TikTok. Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that includes symptoms of inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity (DSM, 2013). It is thought that ADHD affects approximately 8.4% of children and adolescents (Danielson et al., 2018), and between 1 and 6% of adults.The amount of ADHD-related content on TikTok has been rising, with the hashtag ADHD containing 6.3 billion views (Gilmore et al., 2022). Increasing access to mental health information has been recognised as having benefits for mental health awareness and de-stigmatisation, particularly given that adults with ADHD cite the stigma of their diagnosis as a significant challenge (Ginapp et al., 2022) However, the accuracy of this information is important (Pretorius et al., 2022). Concerns have been raised regarding the quality of ADHD-related information available on TikTok. Information about ADHD available on TikTok is often misleading. Analysis of the top 100 TikTok videos containing #adhd found that 52% of them were misleading, and only 21% could be classified as useful (Yueng et al., 2022). Only 11 of the top one hundred videos were created by health care providers, and videos created by non-healthcare providers were found to be significantly more misleading than those created by healthcare providers (Yueng et al., 2022). This has significant implications given that this content is often being used for self-diagnosis. The relationship between the potential for TikTok (and social media more broadly) to de-stigmatise mental health, but also spread misinformation and potentially romanticise mental illness is complicated (Harness & Getzen, 2022). As ADHD-related content has become more popular on TikTok, many individuals have credited social media with helping them realise that they may have a diagnosis and thus seek treatment for it (Abdelnour et al., 2022). There has also been a rise in individuals self-diagnosing with ADHD after watching ADHD content on TikTok (Gilmore et al., 2022). Given that the most popular ADHD content on TikTok is often misleading (Yueng et al., 2022), and that ADHD can share behavioural symptoms with many other mental illnesses, it is likely that many people are misdiagnosing themselves. The current study will survey psychologists working in Australia, and Australians living with ADHD to identify their attitudes towards the rise of ADHD content on TikTok, what they perceive as the benefits and risks associated with this, and their thoughts on self-diagnosis.