Representation of #CAMHS on social media platform TikTok

Preetisha Chadee,Sacha Evans

doi:10.1192/bjo.2021.645

Abstract

AimsThe video-based free social media app, TikTok, has grown in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic, with half of British children using Tik Tok regularly. With more than 2 billion downloads, it was the most downloaded app of 2020. Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) is currently found on TikTok via the hashtag #CAMHS. The aim of this study was to explore how CAMHS is represented on TikTok through reviewing the hashtags associated with CAMHS and exploring the themes of videos with the #CAMHS hashtag.MethodThe Tik Tok app was downloaded and a search for the hashtags which featured the word #CAMHS was undertaken. A thematic analysis of the top 100 most popular uploaded videos featuring the #CAMHS was conducted. The number of likes, views and shares of the videos featuring each theme was recorded.ResultVideos with the hashtag #CAMHS had 203.9 million views, followed by: #camhsmeme(s) totalling 43.1 million views, #camhsjokes with 21.4 million views and #camhskids, 12.5 million views. The top 100 most popular videos represented 24% of total viewed videos with the hashtag #CAMHS.The most popular recurrent themes associated with the hashtag #CAMHS in our sample were: raising awareness of mental health symptoms and management (40% of videos), reference to self-harm (27% of videos) and negative perception of CAMHS (27% of videos).Raising awareness of mental health symptoms and management had the most likes (3,694,700) and views (17,435,900). This was followed by videos with themes of reference to self-harm (3,006,300 likes and 14,382,700 views). The most shared themes were: reference to suicide (shared 56,763 times) and videos which portrayed a theme of negative perception of CAMHS (40,628 shares). Videos with themes of a negative perception of CAMHS also garnered 1,762,500 likes and 8,666,900 views.ConclusionCAMHS is actively represented on TikTok through freely accessible unregulated videos. Videos with themes of raising awareness of mental health symptoms and management can potentially allow young people to share their experiences. Nonetheless, popular hashtags such as #CAMHSmemes and #CAMHSjokes, as well as videos featuring themes of negative perception of CAMHS, could potentially undermine the reputation of CAMHS to existing and future service users. The content of these videos should be taken seriously by CAMHS clinicians as it can potentially provide an insight into service users’ experiences of CAMHS on a scale that has not been observed before. Presently these videos are not screened or modulated by the NHS CAMHS service.

Highlights

This paper reviews the literature on children and adolescents linking glucocorticoid gene receptor NR3C1 to the psychopathology of mental illness
There is a growing understanding that epigenetic modifications likely change over time and clinical significance is most likely dictated by changes at multiple gene locations
The Coventry grid is a clinical tool comparing patterns of difficulties typically seen in autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) versus attachment difficulties

Summary

Introduction

This paper reviews the literature on children and adolescents linking glucocorticoid gene receptor NR3C1 to the psychopathology of mental illness. MEDLINE and PsychINFO were searched for relevant peer-reviewed original research using the following keywords and associated mesh terms: NRC31, glucocorticoid receptor gene, methylation, epigenetics, child, adolescent, trauma, psychopathology, gene expression. Degree of NR3C1 methylation was associated with severity of early life adversity. Longitudinal genetic sampling was only conducted in one study. There is a growing understanding that epigenetic modifications likely change over time and clinical significance is most likely dictated by changes at multiple gene locations.

Results

Conclusion