In a recent article published within the journal BMJ Global Health, researchers analyze TikTok videos on mpox for his or her content, information quality, and engagement.

Study: Mpox (monkeypox) information on TikTok: evaluation of quality and audience engagement, Image Credit: Dotted Yeti / Shutterstock.com

Background

As a consequence of the vast popularity and reach of TikTok, a brief video mobile platform, it has turn into a very important public source of health information and emotional support in the course of the mpox outbreak. Thus, assessing the standard of healthcare information being communicated on this app is imperative.

Users in america of America spend a mean of 45.8 minutes every day watching TikTok videos on health-related information. For instance, in the course of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, physicians and public health departments also used TikTok to advertise knowledge regarding COVID-19 and proper misinformation about this disease.

Ideally, public health agencies should develop other efficient health information-sharing systems. Furthermore, they need to spread awareness that searching for health information on social media might be dangerous.

Data suggests that over 70% of people that sought information from social media experienced impairments of their health status. Since people proceed to make use of social media to study health-related information, evaluating the health-related content shared on all popular social media platforms is crucial. Low-quality information may misguide patients of their health decisions, thereby resulting in a health crisis. 

Previous studies have assessed the standard of the knowledge in video content on COVID-19 and other diseases like Takotsubo syndrome and their engagement with the audience. Engagement analyses help acquire more views, likes, and comments on posted content.

This sort of evaluation for mpox is lacking, despite the recent outbreak and widespread use of social media to amass clinical information for this contagious disease, especially on TikTok.

In regards to the study

In the current study, researchers used an online crawler tool that employed hashtag-based searching to capture all videos uploaded on TikTok between January 1, 2022, and August 11, 2022. The search incorporated six content categories related to mpox disease in clinical practice.

TikTok videos were evaluated for content quality, particularly when discussing topics related to mpox disease features and treatment options. An instrument called DISCERN allowed the researchers to evaluate these videos and their information quality based on a prespecified criterion laid out by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

The team also tracked and recorded the source of TikTok videos, their evaluation scores, and audience engagement metrics. The Kruskal-Wallis test was used for statistical evaluation and a multiple linear regression model for factor-association evaluations.

Results

The researchers manually screened all 2,462 videos retrieved from an initial search, with the ultimate evaluation set consisting of 85 videos. Over 85% of those TikTok videos discussed risk aspects for mpox disease; nevertheless, these videos reported only a 3rd of content categories. Furthermore, the general quality of video content was poor.

TikTok content on mpox was mostly fragmented and unreliable, which implied it could have impacted public agencies’ efforts to disseminate detailed and precise mpox information. A scarcity of scientific supervision when creating social media content was also evident.

The content scores of TikTok videos featuring doctors and researchers were higher. This highlights the role of those professionals in sharing health-related information on social media.

Overall, the video quality evaluation results emphasized the urgent need to determine guidelines/instructions for video creators working on health information videos for social media. Health professionals also needs to be encouraged to make these kinds of videos to enhance the accuracy of health information shared on social media apps like TikTok.

The multiple linear regression evaluation showed that information concerning the quality of treatment decisions and other people within the video were standalone determinants of audience engagement. The DISCERN category also assessed audience engagement; nevertheless, videos addressing mpox management modalities mainly drove audience engagement.

Over 90% of TikTok videos created by health professionals engaged more people than over 28% of videos created by general users. Yet, the poor quality of such videos hindered the anticipated positive outcomes as a result of higher audience engagement.

Conclusions

The present study highlights the risks related to searching for health-related information, especially mpox disease, on social media platforms like TikTok. Although some videos addressed specific elements of mpox disease reliably, most videos had poor quality and biased content, potentially misleading viewers and stopping them from informed decision-making.

Overall, there’s an urgent need for a more reliable and efficient health information-sharing system.

Journal reference:

• Shi, A., El Haddad, J., Cai, P., et al. (2023). Mpox (monkeypox) information on TikTok: evaluation of quality and audience engagement. BMJ Global Health 8. doi:10.1136/bmjgh-2022-011138