Evaluation of the content and quality of schizophrenia on TikTok: a cross-sectional study

Schizophrenia is a common and serious heterogeneous mental disorder that has a significant health and economic impact on families and society. As the prevalence of schizophrenia increases each year, public awareness of the disorder is growing. However, it remains unclear whether the quality of information presented in these videos is satisfactory. Therefore, a comprehensive assessment of the quality and content of schizophrenia-related videos on video-sharing platforms is necessary. We screened 123 schizophrenia-related videos from the video-sharing platform TikTok that met the criteria, and evaluated and analyzed them. First, the basic information provided in the videos was recorded and analyzed. The source and content type of each video was then determined. The educational content and quality of all videos were then evaluated using three rating instruments, Modified DISCERN, Global Quality Scale, and Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). Videos from different sources were also compared to see if they were statistically different in terms of educational content and quality. We identified 4 categories of content for the videos. The science introduction category had the largest number of 50, and the least number of videos was etiology and causation at 15. Six categories of sources of videos were also identified: the for-profit organizations category has the lowest number of 10, the health professionals category has the highest number of 45. There was a significant correlation between video source and duration (P = 0.014). The JAMA score was significantly positively correlated with the number of video likes (r = 0.721, P < 0.001). This study evaluated the content and information quality of 123 videos related to schizophrenia on the video-sharing platform TikTok. The findings indicate that while these videos offer some valuable insights into schizophrenia, the overall quality falls short of satisfactory levels, with inadequate reliability and accuracy.