Contraceptive side effects content on TikTok: A methodological case study leveraging popular TikToks for timely insights

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Abstract
A growing body of research documents contraceptive discussions on social networking sites (SNS) such as TikTok, but offers limited insights due to reliance on small samples of videos. Improved methodological approaches are needed to support innovative and informative research. We present an approach for data scraping and thematic analysis of videos about female-controlled contraceptive side effects on TikTok informed by a Youth Advisory Committee. Two third-party data scrapers on Apify were used to obtain a large sample of TikToks (n=3,506) scraped using contraception-related search terms and hashtags. These videos were screened for eligibility, and we used a hybrid deductive and inductive thematic approach to analyze eligible videos (n=712). A youth advisory committee was formed to guide and interpret the research. Central themes include contrasts between user experiences of side effects and clinical evidence, anti-hormonal sentiment, empowerment, and trust/mistrust in healthcare. This research provides a case study for analyzing TikTok videos to understand emerging population chatter about reproductive health experiences that can be applied to other research topics. Population health researchers can leverage SNS data, building on established qualitative methods, for meaningful and timely insights.