“Narcissist do not love” or “people with ADHD love chaos” – statements like these fill countless videos on mental health topics on social media platforms such as TikTok. As one of the most downloaded and fastest growing social media platforms, TikTok is mostly used by younger people (ARD & ZDF, 2023; BBC News, 2021). Characterized by mainly self-produced, short video clips, TikTok is increasingly gaining public attention as a (dubious) source of information regarding (mental) health issues (Altrock & Kruckenhauser, 2022; Basch et al., 2022; Bonnen, 2024; Chochol et al., 2023; Clark, 2021; Haddadian, 2023; Kong et al., 2021; Lukić & Petrović, 2023; Sun et al., 2023).

The presentation of mental health on TikTok might lead to potential problems ranging from self-diagnosing to the glorification of mental disorders (Ahuja & Fichadia, 2024; Gilmore et al., 2022; Haltigan et al., 2023; Harness & Getzen, 2022; Monteith et al., 2024; Rettew, 2024). Even cases of a suspected social media-induced mass hysteria with tic-like symptoms have been reported (Giedinghagen, 2023; Müller-Vahl et al., 2022). Mental and public health information on TikTok yields potential advantages reaching young viewers but raises the question of whether viewers can distinguish between professional, correct information and misinformation (McCashin & Murphy, 2023). Further, the quality of information about mental disorders on TikTok is, itself, a cause for concern as studies on English language TikTok videos imply that the information in at least half of the videos on attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is misleading or just plain wrong (Aragon-Guevara et al., 2025; Karasavva et al., 2025; Yeung et al., 2022). Some studies even report around 90% of videos to be misleading (Verma & Sinha, 2025). Numbers that high can be a reason for concern. For other disorders, no systematic evaluation is available yet.

With mostly young viewers, these videos potentially reach an audience that has already been distressed by the COVID-19 pandemic (Blackwell et al., 2022; Jones et al., 2021; Panchal et al., 2023). This might be especially problematic for those who experience symptoms like attention deficits, anxiety, sleep problems or depressive mood, as they have already been shown to exhibit excessive social media use or a higher risk of social media misuse (Bickham et al., 2015; Bozzola et al., 2022; Hoge et al., 2017; Montag & Markett, 2024).

Thus, it is plausible to assume that this group might also turn to social media in an attempt to make sense of their symptoms but might then be faced with incorrect and misleading information, potentially leading to adverse effects. It is important to note that medical misinformation might lead to delayed or ineffective treatment, potentially prolonging and enhancing individual suffering and leading to chronification. As an example, a teenager who mistakes their symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder for ADHD symptoms might not seek appropriate therapeutic support. As Basch et al. (2022) argue, it is crucial to further examine prevalence and quality of mental health content on social media to understand possible effects on young people. Potential misassessment of disorders or symptoms by TikTok users could have important consequences for practitioners and their therapeutic interventions that need to be understood as well. For example, patients might adopt the incorrect use of professional jargon from social media (Chevalier, 2024), making mutual understanding between patient and practitioner more difficult.

To our knowledge, there has not yet been a study that has investigated the quality and possible differences of mental health information on TikTok for a broader spectrum of diagnoses, allowing a sufficient evaluation of content quality. However, as disorders differ in their social perception and theoretical complexity, it is likely that videos concerning these disorders also differ in accuracy. Compared to the complex scientific theories on ADHD, the origin of a post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), might be much easier to explain in a short video as, for example, a result of something specific that happened to someone. With only English videos having been analyzed to date, the situation for other languages and cultural areas remains unknown. Thus, our aim for this study was to examine the quality of information on the most popular mental health topics on German-speaking TikTok. In contrast to previous research, we expanded the analysis to a broader number of different disorders. Similar to previous studies, we expected a large proportion of videos with incorrect content. In addition, we expected differences in the quality of information between different disorders. We also investigated whether authorship might influence the quality of content (e.g., videos by mental health experts being more correct than those made by laypeople).

In this study, a total of 177 TikTok videos about mental disorders were analyzed regarding content quality and reliability. This study was the first to cover videos on six different disorders, gathering a total of almost 100,000,000 views. Our results show that more than half of the videos were incorrect or overgeneralized, raising concerns about the general quality of mental health information on social media. The ratings showed differences depending on authorship, with layperson being more strongly associated with incorrect videos, lower quality for patients and less reliability.

The percentage of incorrect videos also varied between different disorders, with videos on PTSD being substantially more correct than those on any other disorder investigated. Then again, every single video on narcissism contained misinformation. This study is the first to report differences in quality and reliability between videos on different disorders on social media. Furthermore, it is the first study showing the insufficient quality of information on mental disorders on TikTok in a non-English-speaking sample. The results are in line with previous research on mental health TikTok videos (Aragon-Guevara et al., 2025; Karasavva et al., 2025; Verma & Sinha, 2025; Yeung et al., 2022) and other medical topics (Chochol et al., 2023; Kong et al., 2021; Lukić & Petrović, 2023; Sun et al., 2023) in English.

Our results also show that mental illness is a viral topic on social media, largely driven by affected persons themselves: they not only produce most of the videos rated as subjective experience, but also just short of half of all the videos in this study. It seems as if social media platforms such as TikTok are vastly used by affected individuals to share their knowledge and experiences. Indeed, patients might benefit from a virtual space to share experiences and offer mutual support. On the other hand, this creates a new social sphere where (mis)information about mental health topics can circulate without any professional or scientific curation. Without guidance, it is hard to differentiate between valid, useful information and incorrect, possibly harmful information (see Table 3). This could be further complicated when some disorders are predominantly presented using correct information, while others are not. In our sample, videos on PTSD showed significantly better ratings of quality compared to all other disorders, also registering the most experts as authors. On the other hand, videos on narcissism were almost exclusively produced by laypeople, showing exclusively incorrect or overgeneralized information.

It can be assumed that affected people with stigmatized disorders are less likely to present themselves and supply information publicly. These differences in authorship seem to be resulting in a skewed representation of information for certain disorders. For example, PTSD can be seen as a hardship that happens to a person or is done to them. Thus, a person with PTSD might (quite correctly) portray themselves as the victim of objectively negative circumstances. On the other hand, the videos in our sample often insinuated that those affected by a narcissistic personality disorder are lacking good morals and ethics and are incapable of love and positive emotions (in stark contrast to the fact that individuals with a narcissistic personality disorder have often been victims of abuse themselves (Bertele et al., 2022; Clemens et al., 2022; Gao et al., 2024)). Identifying with the latter disorder online might thus be less appealing and results, in general, in fewer videos produced by people affected by stigmatized disorders.

Another potential explanation why videos on PTSD are more reliable could be the nature of its symptoms. Experiencing a traumatic event and having flashbacks is a relatively easy-to-grasp and clearly defined symptom. With other disorders, symptoms might sometimes be more vaguely defined (e.g., “deficits in reciprocal social communication and social interaction” (APA, 2013) in ASD) or seem to resemble everyday phenomena more strongly: many people will know what it is like to be easily distracted, even if they do not have a diagnosis of ADHD.

It can only be speculated why such a large amount of information on TikTok is relatively untrustworthy. One potential reason could be the misunderstanding of scientific facts. For example, “object permanence” was falsely interpreted as an ADHD symptom to explain difficulties with remembering objects or appointments. It turned into a viral talking point on social media (Chevalier, 2024) and was widely presented as a symptom of ADHD, when it is actually describing the ability of a child to understand that objects or persons continue to exist even if they cannot be seen or perceived (Barrett, 2001). Similarly, someone could self-diagnose with a disorder after referring to information online and then present their own, maybe unrelated symptoms as part of that disorder. When such information is then spread, cited and repetitively linked to a disorder, new concepts of psychiatric terms and disorders could emerge without science being involved, at all.

The effects on patients and professionals remain unclear. The most obvious consequences could be patients in need of therapy not seeking help after being convinced that, e.g., “ADHD is a superpower”. Others could seek (and possibly receive) therapy of an incorrectly self-diagnosed disorder. With over 90% of TikTok videos referring to tests on ADHD consisting of misleading and incorrect tests and information (Verma & Sinha, 2025), viewers might easily be misled into self-diagnosing a serious mental disorder. If an individual has already received a diagnosis and is then presented with highly negative, conflicting content online, this could have adverse effects on their self-image as well. One can imagine how someone suffering from a narcissistic personality disorder would feel about themself, being characterized as “unable to love” and wanting “to use people”. Further, disorders that are presented as more favorable, popular, or less severe in certain online communities could put additional stress on affected individuals when they do not fit into popular narratives on social media or suffer from a disorder that is presented as less acceptable. Someone suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder might be presented with information about routines or repetitive behavior in ASD with a focus on self-acceptance and suddenly feel conflicted about their own diagnoses or symptoms. As a result, there could be a (possibly unintentional) attempt to fit into a certain social-media narrative, despite it not representing real-life experience.

Further, as the design of social media platforms increases the risk of problematic social media use, linked to traits such as neuroticism and impulsivity (Sindermann et al., 2022). In some cases, there might be a vicious circle between social media use and psychopathological symptoms. The possible extent and impact of this can be observed in the cases of functional tics and tic-like behaviors (Giedinghagen, 2023; Müller-Vahl et al., 2022; Olvera et al., 2021). All these examples could lead to unnecessarily prolonged suffering or even worsening of symptoms over time as a consequence of incorrect social-media information on mental health.