MARC

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022 |a 1369-6513 
022 |a 1369-7625 
024 7 |a 10.1111/hex.70226  |2 doi 
035 |a 3224392198 
045 0 |b d20250601 
084 |a 110711  |2 nlm 
100 1 |a Christiansen, Alex  |u University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK 
245 1 |a Multimodal Analysis of Stories Told by Mental Health Influencers on TikTok 
260 |b John Wiley & Sons, Inc.  |c Jun 1, 2025 
513 |a Journal Article 
520 3 |a ABSTRACT Background Social media influencers are powerful storytellers who function as conduits of public health communication and may contribute significantly to young people's mental health literacy. Influencers who discuss mental health include health professionals, wellness practitioners and experts by lived experience. As yet, there has been no multimodal analysis of how these three influencer types narrate mental health issues. This study critically evaluates 398 TikTok videos to show how three distinct types of influencers construct multimodal narratives around mental health. Methods Data was collected using the TikTok Research API and annotated for narrative patterns and visual formatting using an inductively created multimodal framework. Results The analysis shows important differences between the storytelling practices of health professionals, who inform others through talking head explainers, enactments and stitches, and lived experience influencers who invited shared perspectives on their stories of illness, treatment and recovery through compilations and ‘watch as I do this’ formats. Wellness practitioners occupy an interdiscursive mid‐space, blending the verbal aspects of ‘informing’ (explainers) with the visual narration of ‘shared experience’ to promote solutions through recommendation and advertising. The data also highlights similarities between the health professionals and wellness influencers in their use of marketing calls to action, indicating the commercialisation of mental health solutions offered in TikTok videos. Conclusions It is concerning that the gap between information and support provided on TikTok may lead to partial and imbalanced development of mental health literacy by adolescent users and that content provided by certain influencer types mimics authoritative and authentic communication but promotes non‐medical solutions to mental health, unsupported by evidence. Patient or Public Involvement Twelve young people with lived experience of mental health challenges, aged between 16 and 25, were recruited through The McPin Foundation to form the young people's advisory group (YPAG) for the project. This age range incorporates adolescents and ‘emerging adults’ who are likely to experience a range of life transitions and encounter challenges in mental health. The group met remotely four times during the study, helping to define the categories of influencers, refining the narrative categories and visual formats for the code book and discussing data examples openly to guide the analysis. Two members of the YPAG were trained and participated as coders in the inter‐rater reliability process. 
610 4 |a TikTok Inc 
653 |a Stitches 
653 |a Mental health 
653 |a Adolescents 
653 |a Public health 
653 |a Literacy 
653 |a Life transitions 
653 |a Mental disorders 
653 |a Young adults 
653 |a Storytelling 
653 |a Advertising 
653 |a Talking 
653 |a Health literacy 
653 |a Public involvement 
653 |a Medicine 
653 |a Health education 
653 |a Video 
653 |a Reliability 
653 |a Professionals 
653 |a Health information 
653 |a Commercialization 
653 |a Youth 
653 |a Narratives 
653 |a Medical personnel 
653 |a Influencer marketing 
653 |a Social networks 
653 |a Mass media 
653 |a Video recordings 
653 |a Information sharing 
653 |a Multimodality 
653 |a Advisory groups 
653 |a Citizen participation 
653 |a Eating disorders 
653 |a Social media 
653 |a Narration 
653 |a Communication 
653 |a Marketing 
653 |a Advertisements 
653 |a Experience 
653 |a Computer mediated communication 
653 |a Data 
653 |a Rehabilitation 
653 |a Cognitive development 
653 |a Adults 
653 |a Classification 
653 |a Social 
700 1 |a Craythorne, Shioma‐Lei  |u Aston University, Birmingham, UK 
700 1 |a Crawford, Paul  |u University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK 
700 1 |a Larkin, Michael  |u Aston University, Birmingham, UK 
700 1 |a Gohil, Aalok  |u The McPin Foundation, London, UK 
700 1 |a Strutt, Spencer  |u The McPin Foundation, London, UK 
700 1 |a Page, Ruth  |u University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK 
773 0 |t Health Expectations  |g vol. 28, no. 3 (Jun 1, 2025) 
786 0 |d ProQuest  |t Health & Medical Collection 
856 4 1 |3 Citation/Abstract  |u https://www.proquest.com/docview/3224392198/abstract/embedded/7BTGNMKEMPT1V9Z2?source=fedsrch 
856 4 0 |3 Full Text  |u https://www.proquest.com/docview/3224392198/fulltext/embedded/7BTGNMKEMPT1V9Z2?source=fedsrch 
856 4 0 |3 Full Text - PDF  |u https://www.proquest.com/docview/3224392198/fulltextPDF/embedded/7BTGNMKEMPT1V9Z2?source=fedsrch