TikTok and #OccupationalTherapy: Cross-sectional Study

Abstract

Background Medical providers use the short-form video social media platform TikTok to share information related to their scope of practice and insights about their professions. Videos under the hashtag #occupationaltherapy on TikTok have over 100 million views, but there is no evidence investigating how occupational therapy information and knowledge are shared on the platform. Objective The purpose of this cross-sectional study is to describe TikTok content with the hashtag #occupationaltherapy and investigate how occupational therapy is portrayed. Methods We performed a content analysis on the top 500 TikTok videos under the hashtag #occupationaltherapy. We analyzed occupational therapy content themes (occupational therapy intervention, education, student training, universal design, and humor), practice settings (pediatrics, generalists, dementia, hand therapy, neurology, occupational therapy students, older adults, mental health, and unknown), and sentiments (positive, negative, and neutral). Results The videos in our sample (n=500) received 175,862,994 views. The 2 most prevalent content areas were education (n=210) and occupational therapy interventions (n=146). The overall sentiment of the videos was positive (n=302). The most frequently observed practice settings in the videos were pediatrics (n=131) and generalists (n=129). Most videos did not state that it was occupational therapy (n=222) or misused the hashtag (n=131). Conclusions TikTok has the potential for occupational therapists to share innovations, build communities of practice, and engage in collaborative efforts to share information about occupational therapists’ unique roles with diverse populations. Future research is needed to monitor the quality of information and debunk inaccuracies.