The influence of social media on the irrational use of isotretinoin

Abstract

The internet has gained great social diffusion in recent decades, giving people the opportunity to have it as a work tool through, for example, various social media vehicles. Consequently, such people become a symbol of influence in the consumption of products, including pharmaceuticals. The study aimed to analyze the profile of isotretinoin approach in social media, as well as its possible consequences. This is a narrative and exploratory bibliographic research. For its construction, initially, articles from the last 10 years were selected, therefore, data was collected on the digital platforms Instagram®, TikTok® and YouTube® using the hashtags #roacutan/roaccutane and isotretinoína/isotretinoin (in Portuguese and English). The schematization of the results was given by the individuality of each social network. On the Instagram ® platform, the results were characterized by the number of publications that had the hashtags (#roaccutane, #roaccutane, #isotretinoína and #isotretinoin). On TikTok®, the layout of the results occurred in such a way that, when searching separately for the 4 hashtags mentioned above, the number of views that each of the tags added up was investigated, and in videos with greater reach. On YouTube® (using the 4 tags), the videos posted were quantified along with the number of channels that provided content from the present study, with the tag #roacutan being widely highlighted. As for the analysis of the academic training of content producers, an average of 40 videos were surveyed, meaning qualified and unskilled influencers, with Instagram being the network that most totalizes health professionals. It was possible to observe that a large portion of content producers did not have academic training in the area corresponding to the subject in question, a factor that can negatively impact the habits of those who consume such information.