Can mental disorders be diagnosed in 60 seconds? With the popularization of TikTok, quick content that promises to diagnose diseases such as depression, borderline and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is gaining more and more space. The videos usually follow the same logic, the user scrolls the cell phone screen and there appears a list of possible symptoms. If the person identifies with a certain amount, the diagnosis is closed.
The reach of this type of content is huge. Psychologist Clarissa Mendonça Corradi Webster, professor of the Psychology course at the Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters in Ribeirão Preto (FFCLRP) at USP, says that #anxiety (anxiety in Portuguese) registered more than 11 million views until the beginning of 2022 and #ADHD, over 9 million. These are themes that generate a lot of engagement, but which have no control over their veracity. “This is a bad combination, complex mental health content produced in a simple, fast and sensationalist way in the search for engagement”, completes the psychologist.
When performed by medical specialists, the diagnosis of mental disorders should be made through an interview or several interviews with the patient, in an attempt to collect data based on observation of how the person behaves. The interviews take into account the individual’s interpersonal relationships, the way they talk, current and past experiences, in addition to investigating areas such as thinking, humor and impulsivity.
“We, as professionals, seek to know aspects of their history that can help clarify temperament traits that can influence the diagnosis”, says Clarissa. Relatives and teachers can also be consulted so that the diagnosis is complete, in addition to monitoring the condition during a certain period. The psychologist points out that the diagnosis of any mental disorder is complex and very careful and should be done by professionals.
Misleading Contents
A study published in 2022 analyzed 100 videos featuring #ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) and concluded that 52% of them fell into the misleading category. The other videos totaled 27% of reports sharing personal experiences and 21% were classified as useful videos, that is, the minority of them.
Of the 52 videos defined as misleading, 37 incorrectly attributed common psychiatric symptoms, which exist in many other disorders, not just ADHD. “Symptoms such as anxiety, mood swings such as depression, anger, relationship conflicts, which are present in several cases, were attributed to ADHD. That is, if you feel this, you have this disorder”, exemplifies the psychologist.
Another important aspect that the research raises is that none of the videos categorized as misleading suggested that the recipient of the message, who was watching the video on TikTok, sought psychological help. “That is, if the content producer assumed that what he said was really true, then he would have to end up recommending that the user look for a professional, but that is not what happens”, adds the expert.
Relativization of disorders
Clarissa warns that, by trivializing the diagnosis, suffering is also trivialized. “Increasingly, common experiences are treated in everyday life under the name of diagnoses. For example, we end up no longer saying that we are sad, but depressed, or if we are happy, we say that we are manic. If we perceive a variation in mood, we call it bipolar.” When using these terms in a trivial way, the possibilities of dealing with disorders are reduced, as well as the chances of expanding understanding about them.
The aforementioned study also assessed who the authors of the videos were and found that 89 of them were made by people who were not health professionals. That is, a huge number of content that taught how to diagnose ADHD was made by people who were professionally unprepared. “That way, it’s up to the user to select which videos are credible or not”, says the psychologist.
In this scenario, another survey, which evaluated the network of TikTok users, showed that half of them are young people. In 2021, it was identified that 25% of network users were between 10 and 19 years old and 23% between 20 and 29 years old. The numbers show a huge number of teenagers who are in the process of building their identity and who are looking for many answers about life questions, easily finding videos that promise a diagnosis for such serious and complex diseases.