Misinformation about Mental Illness

Health misinformation can be described as a health-related claim based on false, misleading or subjective evidence (Chou et al., 2018).  According to Chou et al. (2018), social media platforms are increasingly being utilized to seek out and share health information. While social media platforms have proven useful in advancing health promotion related efforts (McGloin and Eslami, 2015; Sama et al., 2014) they also provide a conduit for spreading health misinformation (Suarez-Lledo and Alvarez-Galvez, 2021). Literature suggests that health misinformation may spread more easily than evidence-based health information on social media platforms (Vosoughi et al., 2018).

Not surprisingly, research indicates that the general public relies on media as its primary information source about mental illness (Wahl, 1992; Coverdale et al., 2002). An example of health misinformation relevant to my work as an operational manager of an inpatient psychiatry unit is that people with mental health conditions are violent. Though the media often portrays people living with mental health conditions as being threatening or dangerous, scientific literature indicates that the general population is as likely to be violent as those living with mental health conditions (Whitley and Berry, 2013; Stuart, 2013; Halle et al., 2020). In fact, research has shown that people with mental illness are more likely to be victims of violence than committing violence themselves (Stuart, 2013). Unfortunately, misinformation portraying people with mental illness as violent adds to societal stigma around mental health. More specifically, this negative portrayal of people with mental illness in the media may contribute to added fear and discrimination towards people with mental illness, which may exacerbate their vulnerability in society (Whitley and Berry, 2013).

References:

Chou, W.S., Oh, A., & Klein, W.M. (2018). Addressing Health-Related Misinformation on Social Media. JAMA, 320(23). doi:10.1001/jama.2018.16865

Coverdale, J.H., Nairn, R., & Claasen, D. (2002). Depictions of Mental Illness in Print Media: A Prospective National Sample. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 36, 697 - 700. DOI:10.1046/j.1440-1614.2002.00998.x

Halle, C., Tzani Pepelasi, K., Pylarinou, N., & Fumagalli, A. (2020). The link between mental health, crime and violence. New Ideas in Psychology, 58, [100779]. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.newideapsych.2020.100779

McGloin, A. F., & Eslami, S. (2015). Digital and social media opportunities for dietary behaviour change. The Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, 74(2), 139–148. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0029665114001505

Sama, P. R., Eapen, Z. J., Weinfurt, K. P., Shah, B. R., & Schulman, K. A. (2014). An evaluation of mobile health application tools. JMIR mHealth and uHealth, 2(2), e19. https://doi.org/10.2196/mhealth.3088

Stuart H. (2003). Violence and mental illness: an overview. World psychiatry : official journal of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA), 2(2), 121–124. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1525086/

Suarez-Lledo, V., & Alvarez-Galvez, J. (2021). Prevalence of Health Misinformation on Social Media: Systematic Review. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 23(1), N.PAG. https://0-doi-org.aupac.lib.athabascau.ca/10.2196/17187

Vosoughi, S., Roy, D., & Aral, S. (2018). The spread of true and false news online. Science (New York, N.Y.), 359(6380), 1146–1151.

https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aap9559

Wahl, O. F. (1992). Mass media images of mental illness: A review of the literature. Journal of Community Psychology, 20(4), 343–352. https://doi.org/10.1002/1520-6629(199210)20:4<343::AID-JCOP2290200408>3.0.CO;2-2

Whitley, R., & Berry, S. (2013). Trends in newspaper coverage of mental illness in Canada: 2005-2010. Canadian journal of psychiatry. Revue canadienne de psychiatrie, 58(2), 107–112. https://doi.org/10.1177/070674371305800208