Infodemic and Mental Health Consequences

Abstract

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, a tremendous amount of information is spread through social media, including wrong/ misinterpreted information and rumors. World Health Organization (WHO) named this mis/disinformation spread about the pandemic as “infodemic”. In this research, Scopus and PubMed databases were searched with ‘infodemic’ and ‘mental health’ keywords. The data gathered revealed that mental health disorders, including perceptual disorders such as depersonalization and derealization, anxiety disorders, depressive disorders and, also suicidal ideation, increased as a result of the infodemic. Another significant result obtained was the change in discourses among the members of mental health disorder support groups: more negative loads such as hopelessness, helplessness, loneliness, and even suicide were increased.