From #cervicalcancerscreening to #LEEP – Quality and accuracy of cervical cancer content on TikTok

TL;DR

TikTok's top cervical cancer screening videos often lack medical info, but content by professionals is more accurate and valuable.

Contribution

The study reveals that medical professionals' content on TikTok is more accurate and higher quality than popular user-generated content.

Findings

Top TikTok cervical cancer videos mostly focus on personal experiences with little medical value.

Videos created by medical professionals are higher quality and contain accurate health information.

Improving content quality on TikTok could increase cervical cancer screening awareness and uptake.

Abstract

•The most viewed cervical cancer screening content on TikTok does not contain useful medical information.•The supplements created by medical professionals were higher quality and more often contained accurate health information.•Medical educational content on TikTok by health professionals provides an opportunity for improved outreach and engagement.

The most viewed cervical cancer screening content on TikTok does not contain useful medical information.

The supplements created by medical professionals were higher quality and more often contained accurate health information.

Medical educational content on TikTok by health professionals provides an opportunity for improved outreach and engagement.

Many reproductive-aged individuals use social media platforms to gather medical advice or find community. TikTok is one of the fastest growing social media platforms and used by many reproductive-aged individuals.

We evaluated the top 100 English-language videos on cervical cancer screening and dysplasia treatment for relevance to the hashtag and content quality and accuracy.

Among the included videos, most of the content highlighted patients’ personal experiences and provided little medical educational value. Notably, the videos created by medical professionals were higher quality and more often contained accurate health information.

This study highlights the need to increase content quality on TikTok to raise awareness and uptake for cervical cancer screening and treatment in reproductive-aged individuals.