Health care professionals, patients post different views to #PapSmear TikTok
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Key takeaways:
- Negative and neutral videos outnumber positive posts to #PapSmear on TikTok.
- Most negative content is created by non-health care providers.
- Quality of health care information in #PapSmear videos is low.
SAN FRANCISCO — Most positive content tagged to #PapSmear on TikTok is created by health care professionals, whereas almost all negative videos are created by nonmedical users of the platform.
In addition, most negative content centers on patient experiences, according to data presented at the ACOG Annual Clinical & Scientific Meeting.
“There’s a conversation on #PapSmear Tik Tok. Tok Tok’s population tends to be younger and female, between [ages] 18 and 24 [years], and we wanted to quantify the information that’s being portrayed there,” Madelaine E. McElrath, BS, a medical student at New York Medical College in Irvington, told Healio.
McElrath and colleagues reviewed 93 videos with 237 million views, 19 million likes and 241,000 comments posted to Tik Tok with the tag #PapSmear. The researchers assessed tone, themes such as educational, patient experience or reaction videos, and creator demographics. They modified the DISCERN instrument to assess quality of health information in the videos and the Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool to assess consumer understandability and actionability.
Overall, 26.9% of videos were deemed positive; of these, 68% were created by health care professionals and 48% were educational. Of the 37.6% of videos coded negative, 91.4% were from creators who were not health care professionals and 60% recounted personal patient experiences. Common themes seen in the patient videos were fear, embarrassment and pain.
Overall, the #PapSmear content was understandable, but quality of the health information and actionability were low, according to the researchers.
“We found that a lot of the videos that were tagged #PapSmear referred more to the pelvic exam than the actual Pap smear itself — so less about the test and more about the experience of having a pelvic exam. I think that is because generally for most young women getting a Pap smear, their only experience with a gynecologist is a pelvic exam,” McElrath said.
Asked about any benefit to viewing women’s health care videos on Tik Tok, McElrath said that videos on different specific topics may be more or less positive than those seen with #PapSmear.
“Anecdotally when I’ve been in clinic, I’ve had patients say they’ve done research on Tik Tok, and it has prompted them to talk to their doctor further. So it can be useful in that way, even though there is a lot of opportunity for misinformation,” she said.