Evaluation of TikTok social media posts on side effect information for popular weight loss medications

Introduction

The prevalence of overweight and obesity is increasing in America, contributing to various health risks. Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) and gastric inhibitory peptide (GIP) receptor agonists have bloomed in popularity due to their efficacy and United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for weight loss, igniting popularity on social media. This study focuses on the role of TikTok™ (ByteDance, Haidian, Beijing, China), a popular social media platform, in disseminating understandable and actionable information about the side effects of weight loss medications.

Methods

The study analyzed the top 50 TikTok videos for each of the following hashtags: #ozempicsideeffects, #semaglutidesideeffects, #mounjarosideeffects, and #wegovysideeffects. Videos were evaluated based on their understandability and actionability using the Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool (PEMAT) for audio-visual (AV) products. PEMAT-AV scores and popularity of videos were compared between hashtags utilizing one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). An alpha of 0.05 was used, with Bonferroni correction.

Results

A total of 165 videos were reviewed for PEMAT-AV understandability and actionability scores. The total visibility of the videos reached over 19.4 million views. A majority of the videos were personal experiences (89%), with only 5% being health care education videos. The average understandability and actionability scores for all videos were 43% and 20%, respectfully. The data presented a difference between searched hashtags for both evaluation scores, p-values of <0.001 and 0.093, respectively.

Conclusion

TikTok videos covering weight loss medication side effects have poor understandability and actionability scores. This study highlights the opportunity for more educational videos produced by health care professionals on TikTok, and a potential need for health care organizations and/or colleges of pharmacy to provide education to health care providers on how to create quality content for medication education on social media-based platforms. Further research is needed to evaluate the credibility of content.