Review article
https://doi.org/10.5671/ca.46.1.10
Infodemic and Mental Health Consequences
Zihniye Okray
orcid.org/0000-0002-9117-4991
; Department of Psychology, European University of Lefke, North Cyprus
Supplements: 10-Okray.pdf
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.
Keywords
COVID-19, pandemic, infodemic, mental health, social media
Hrčak ID:
278085
URI
Publication date:
1.4.2022.
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