ReviewFrontiers in pediatrics2022
The Rise of Functional Tic-Like Behaviors: What Do the COVID-19 Pandemic and Social Media Have to Do With It? A Narrative Review.
Review in Frontiers in pediatrics, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
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
12 citing papers in PubMed, 28 citations in OpenAlex.
- Tourette syndrome.Nature reviews. Disease primers · 2026Review
- Exploring Empowerment in Online Support Communities for People Living With Tic Disorders and Tourette Syndrome: Qualitative Survey Study of User Experiences.JMIR formative research · 2025Article
- Neurodevelopmental Tics with Co-Morbid Functional Tic-like Behaviors: Diagnostic Challenges of a Complex Tourette Syndrome Phenotype.Brain sciences · 2025Article
- Functional Tic-like Behaviors: From the COVID-19 Pandemic to the Post-Pandemic Era.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- What are the Key Phenomenological Clues to Diagnose Functional Tic-Like Behaviors in the Pandemic Era?Movement disorders clinical practice · 2024Article
- Time is ticking for TikTok tics: A retrospective follow-up study in the post-COVID-19 isolation era.Brain and behavior · 2024Article
- Prospective follow-up study of youth and adults with onset of functional tic-like behaviours during the COVID-19 pandemic.European journal of neurology · 2024Article
- Comorbidity of physical illnesses and mental disorders in outpatients with tic disorders: a retrospective study using the outpatient case system.Frontiers in neurology · 2024Article
- Illness-Promoting Psychological Processes in Children and Adolescents with Functional Neurological Disorder.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Integrated cognitive behavioral intervention for functional tics (I-CBiT): case reports and treatment formulation.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2023Article
- Long COVID as a functional somatic symptom disorder caused by abnormally precise prior expectations during Bayesian perceptual processing: A new hypothesis and implications for pandemic response.SAGE open medicine · 2023Review
- TikTok Tourette's: Are We Witnessing a Rise in Functional Tic-Like Behavior Driven by Adolescent Social Media Use?Psychology research and behavior management · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: There has been a rise in explosive onset of tic-like behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic. Historically, this is an uncommon phenomenology of functional movement disorders across all ages. Both the psychological burden of the pandemic and social media usage have been implicated in the rise of these tic-like behaviors. Methods: This paper provides a narrative review of the literature on chronic tic disorders, functional tics, and mass functional illness with particular focus on the key distinguishing features, role of social media, and the role of COVID-19. Results: The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly affected the mental health of many individuals, including children, adolescents, and their caregivers. Implementation of lockdowns, lifestyle disruptions, school closures, and social distancing have driven a surge in social media and digital technology use. The combination of predisposing factors, the psychological burden of the COVID-19 pandemic, and social media are implicated in the rise and spread of tic-like behaviors; which may represent a modern-day form of mass functional illness. While many of the features overlap with functional tics, there are emerging distinctive features that are important to recognize. A more encompassing term, Conclusion: Knowledge of these differences is essential to mitigate downstream health effects and poor outcomes.
Indexed as
Identifiers
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.