ADHD misinformation on TikTok is shaping young adults’ perceptions
Peer-Reviewed Publication
Updates every hour. Last Updated: 27-Jul-2025 13:10 ET (27-Jul-2025 17:10 GMT/UTC)
The most popular ADHD-related content on TikTok often does not match mental health professionals’ views, potentially influencing how young adults perceive the disorder, a new University of B.C. study has found. An analysis of the 100 most-viewed TikTok videos related to attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) revealed that fewer than half the claims regarding symptoms made in those videos actually align with clinical guidelines for diagnosing ADHD. Videos with low-quality information or misinformation received a much higher rating from young adults than from clinical psychologists. The more ADHD-related TikTok content a young adult consumes, the more likely they are to overestimate both the prevalence and severity of ADHD symptoms in the general population, and the more likely they are to recommend videos regardless of the information's reliability.
The ACMG Foundation for Genetic and Genomic Medicine is proud to present the ACMG Foundation David L. Rimoin Inspiring Excellence Award to Ali H. Bereshneh, PhD for his featured platform presentation, “Heterozygous De novo variants in CDKL1 and CDKL2 cause neuroregressive phenotypes in Human and Drosophila and are dominant negative alleles,” at the 2025 ACMG Annual Clinical Genetics Meeting in Los Angeles, CA.