ReviewZeitschrift fur Gesundheitswissenschaften = Journal of public health2021
The impact of fake news on social media and its influence on health during the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic review.
Review in Zeitschrift fur Gesundheitswissenschaften = Journal of public health, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 119 papers, 6 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
119 citing papers in PubMed, 6 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Development of a Conceptual Framework of Health Misinformation During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Systematic Review of Reviews.JMIR public health and surveillance · 2025Pooled it
- New Insights from Toxinology in Mammalian Reproduction: A Systematic Review.Mini reviews in medicinal chemistry · 2025Pooled it
- Psychological factors contributing to the creation and dissemination of fake news among social media users: a systematic review.BMC psychology · 2024Pooled it
- Prevalence of mental health symptoms in children and adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic: A meta-analysis.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2023Pooled it
- Adaptations in the role of pharmacists under the conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC health services research · 2023Pooled it
- Infodemics and health misinformation: a systematic review of reviews.Bulletin of the World Health Organization · 2022Pooled it
- Social Media and the Influence of Fake News on Global Health Interventions: Implications for a Study on Dengue in Brazil.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Trial
- Faith, food, and healing: a global cross-sectional study of knowledge, attitudes, and practices related to Islamic complementary and alternative foods and remedies.BMC complementary medicine and therapies · 2026Article
- The association of student activism, misinformation and disinformation with mental health: insights from university students in Bangladesh.BMC psychology · 2026Article
- Disinformation elicits learning biases.eLife · 2026Article
- Mapping risk communication practices in public health emergencies: a scoping review and comparison with Italian regional pandemic plans.BMC public health · 2026Article
- The eHealth literacy and its sociodemographic determinants among adult inpatients in Web 3.0 context: a cross-sectional study.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Review
- Community-based fact-checking reduces the spread of misleading posts on X (formerly Twitter).Nature communications · 2026Article
- Scope and Prospects of Social Media for Patient Education and Engagement in Medical Practice.Cureus · 2026Review
- Analyzing Misinformation and Disinformation: Understanding Swiss COVID-19 Narratives Through Natural Language Processing Analysis.JMIR infodemiology · 2026Article
- Article
- Experiences and challenges of female sex workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Iran: a narrative inquiry.BMC women's health · 2026Article
- Enhancing online well-being through transformer-based analysis of misinformation and mental health.Discover mental health · 2026Article
- Gaps in dengue fever knowledge, attitudes, and practices among healthcare professionals in southeastern Iran.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2026Article
59 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeAs the new coronavirus disease propagated around the world, the rapid spread of news caused uncertainty in the population. False news has taken over social media, becoming part of life for many people. Thus, this study aimed to evaluate, through a systematic review, the impact of social media on the dissemination of infodemic knowing and its impacts on health.
methodsA systematic search was performed in the MedLine, Virtual Health Library (VHL), and Scielo databases from January 1, 2020, to May 11, 2021. Studies that addressed the impact of fake news on patients and healthcare professionals around the world were included. It was possible to methodologically assess the quality of the selected studies using the Loney and Newcastle-Ottawa Scales.
resultsFourteen studies were eligible for inclusion, consisting of six cross-sectional and eight descriptive observational studies. Through questionnaires, five studies included measures of anxiety or psychological distress caused by misinformation; another seven assessed feeling fear, uncertainty, and panic, in addition to attacks on health professionals and people of Asian origin.
conclusionBy analyzing the phenomenon of fake news in health, it was possible to observe that infodemic knowledge can cause psychological disorders and panic, fear, depression, and fatigue.
Indexed as
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.