Mental Health Content Accuracy Varies

Researchers found misinformation rates ranged from 0% to 57% across platforms and topics, with higher rates reported in several TikTok studies compared with YouTube.

By
Kathryn Wighton
March 27, 2026
3 min

Conexiant

Objective:

To assess the accuracy of mental health and neurodivergence-related content on social media platforms.

Approach:

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%.