Pretorius Claudette, McCashin Darragh, Coyle David
Insight Centre for Data Analytics, School of Computer Science, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.
School of Psychology, Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland.
Internet Interv. 2022 Nov 18;30:100591. doi: 10.1016/j.invent.2022.100591. eCollection 2022 Dec.
Mental disorders are recognised as the leading causes of disability worldwide. Despite high rates of incidence, few young people pursue formal help-seeking. Low levels of mental health literacy have been identified as a contributing factor to the notable lack of formal help-seeking by young people. Social media offers a potential means through which to engage and improve young people's mental health literacy. Mental health influencers could be a means through which to do this.
The objectives of this study were two-fold: (1) to systematically identify the most popular mental health professionals who could be classified as 'influencers'; and (2) to determine whether their content contributed to mental health literacy.
The search function of Instagram and TikTok was used to generate a list of accounts owned by mental health professionals with over 100,000 followers. Accounts not in English, in private, with no posts in the last year or with content unrelated to the search terms were excluded. Accounts were assessed for number of followers, country of origin, verified status and whether a disclaimer was included. Using content analysis, the five most recent posts dating back from 15 November 2021 were analysed for purpose and dimensions of mental health literacy as outlined by Jorm (2000) by three separate reviewers.
A total of 28 influencer accounts were identified on TikTok and 22 on Instagram. Majority of the accounts on both TikTok and Instagram originated from the United States ( = 35). A greater number of accounts included disclaimer and crisis support information on Instagram (12/22, 54.55 %) than on TikTok (8/22, 36.36 %). A total of 140 posts were analysed on TikTok and 110 posts on Instagram. When addressing elements of mental health literacy from this sample, 23.57 % (33/140) TikTok posts and 7.27 %. (8/110) posts on Instagram enhanced the ability to recognise specific difficulties.
These platforms and accounts provide a potential means through which to make mental health information more accessible, however, these accounts are not subjected to any credibility checks. Careful consideration should be given to the impact of content created by mental health professionals and its role in supporting help-seeking.
精神障碍被认为是全球残疾的主要原因。尽管发病率很高，但很少有年轻人寻求正规的帮助。心理健康素养水平低被认为是年轻人明显缺乏寻求正规帮助的一个促成因素。社交媒体提供了一种潜在的方式来吸引和提高年轻人的心理健康素养。心理健康有影响力的人可能是实现这一目标的一种方式。
本研究的目的有两个：（1）系统地识别最受欢迎的可被归类为“有影响力的人”的心理健康专业人员；（2）确定他们的内容是否有助于提高心理健康素养。
使用Instagram和TikTok的搜索功能生成一份心理健康专业人员拥有的粉丝超过10万的账户列表。排除非英语账户、私人账户、过去一年没有帖子或内容与搜索词无关的账户。评估账户的粉丝数量、原产国、认证状态以及是否包含免责声明。采用内容分析法，由三名独立评审员对2021年11月15日以来的五篇最新帖子进行分析，以确定其目的以及Jorm（2000年）概述的心理健康素养维度。
在TikTok上共识别出28个有影响力的账户，在Instagram上识别出22个。TikTok和Instagram上的大多数账户都来自美国（n = 35）。与TikTok（8/22，36.36%）相比，Instagram上更多的账户包含免责声明和危机支持信息（12/22，54.55%）。在TikTok上共分析了140篇帖子，在Instagram上分析了110篇帖子。从这个样本中分析心理健康素养要素时，23.57%（33/140）的TikTok帖子和7.27%（8/110）的Instagram帖子增强了识别特定困难的能力。
这些平台和账户提供了一种潜在的方式，使心理健康信息更容易获取，然而，这些账户没有经过任何可信度检查。应仔细考虑心理健康专业人员创建的内容的影响及其在支持寻求帮助方面的作用。
