Investigating #covidnurse Messages on TikTok: Descriptive Study (Preprint)

BACKGROUND During a time of high stress and decreased social interaction, nurses have turned to social media platforms like TikTok as an outlet for expression, entertainment, and communication. OBJECTIVE The purpose of this cross-sectional content analysis study is to describe the content of videos with the hashtag #covidnurse on TikTok, which included 100 videos in the English language. METHODS At the time of the study, this hashtag had 116.9 million views. Each video was coded for content-related to what nurses encountered and were feeling during the COVID-19 pandemic. RESULTS Combined, the 100 videos sampled received 47,056,700 views; 76,856 comments; and 5,996,676 likes. There were 4 content categories that appeared in a majority (>50) of the videos: 83 showed the individual as a nurse, 72 showed the individual in professional attire, 58 mentioned/suggested stress, 55 used music, and 53 mentioned/suggested frustration. Those that mentioned stress and those that mentioned frustration received less than 50% of the total views (n=21,726,800, 46.17% and n=16,326,300, 34.69%, respectively). Although not a majority, 49 of the 100 videos mentioned the importance of nursing. These videos garnered 37.41% (n=17,606,000) of the total views, 34.82% (n=26,759) of the total comments, and 23.85% (n=1,430,213) of the total likes. So, despite nearly half of the total videos mentioning how important nurses are, these videos received less than half of the total views, comments, and likes. CONCLUSIONS Social media and increasingly video-related online messaging such as TikTok are important platforms for social networking, social support, entertainment, and education on diverse topics, including health in general and COVID-19 specifically. This presents an opportunity for future research to assess the utility of the TikTok platform for meaningful engagement and health communication on important public health issues.