Nurses are battling a relentless tide of health misinformation that is eroding their morale and undermining public trust, the Royal College of Nursing’s annual congress has heard. Members of the profession described being placed “on the front line of confusion, fear and public scepticism”, where the emotional labour of constantly correcting false claims is leaving staff exhausted, stressed and increasingly likely to quit.
Morale under strain
Peace Yaa Akorli, of the RCN’s eastern region, told delegates in Liverpool that nurses are often the first person patients turn to for reassurance and clarity. “But constantly correcting misinformation can be emotionally exhausting, time consuming and, at times, damaging the trust between the healthcare professionals and the community,” she said. The result, she warned, is a direct hit on the workforce: increased stress, burnout, verbal abuse and frustration contribute to low morale and make it harder to retain staff.
A 2024 review underlined the scale of the problem, finding a strong correlation between UK nurses intending to leave their jobs and criteria associated with mental health diagnoses including depression, PTSD, anxiety and burnout. Pay, work-life balance and wellbeing remain key factors driving attrition, but the report also highlighted the cumulative toll of fighting an “ongoing battle against myths and false narratives”.
Charlotte Glynn, chair of the RCN’s Women’s Health Forum, pointed to the underlying causes driving patients towards unreliable sources. “The widespread use of dynamic digital platforms and social media means that many people are effectively always online,” she said. “Combined with long waiting lists, complex symptoms, and an unstable political climate, this can drive patients to seek clinical advice from unreliable sources.” She stressed that while myths have always existed in healthcare, the speed and reach of online information today means false and sometimes dangerous claims can spread to huge audiences almost instantly.
Social media’s double-edged sword
Nowhere is the paradox of social media more apparent than in public understanding of neurodevelopmental conditions such as ADHD and autism. Mental health nurse Clare Manley, chair of the RCN’s Cheshire branch, acknowledged that platforms like TikTok and Instagram have helped people have “open conversations and reduced stigma”. But she said they have also “heightened expectations” and, in some cases, led to a “misunderstanding of what ADHD and autism truly are”.
The result is what Manley called an “inflammation of public perception” that places strain on already stretched services. “Nurses navigate longer waiting lists, complex presentations, and a growing pressure to deliver rapid answers in a system designed for thoughtful, evidence-based assessment,” she said. “It affects morale, retention, and the emotional labour that we carry.” Patients, she added, often arrive expecting instant diagnoses, treatments and even transformations – expectations that social media shapes in ways that “don’t always align with clinical reality”.
Research into the content circulating on TikTok bears out these concerns. Studies have found that a significant percentage of mental health content on the platform – particularly regarding ADHD and autism – contains inaccurate or unsubstantiated information, frequently based on personal anecdotes rather than established diagnostic criteria. The phenomenon is not limited to neurodiversity: TikTok’s #health hashtag commands billions of views, and a substantial proportion of users report encountering untrue or misleading health information, with some acting on inaccurate advice. Misleading mental health content can trivialise serious conditions and pathologise everyday emotions, while the rise in self-diagnosis has created additional demand for services that are already underfunded.
The impact of misinformation on vaccination programmes is equally stark. Annafleur van Mourik Broekman, who works in public health education specialising in vaccination, told congress she deals with the consequences “every single day”. False claims about vaccine safety, efficacy, ingredients and purpose, spread primarily through social media, have driven down public confidence. MMR uptake in England has fallen to its lowest level in over a decade, well below the 95% threshold needed for herd immunity, and a national measles incident was declared in January 2024. Van Mourik Broekman stressed that nurses themselves are not immune: “Nurses are also members of the public and are not immune to misinformation.”
The threat of AI-generated misinformation
While the current landscape is already damaging, delegates warned that the worst may be yet to come. “I think we’re seeing the tip of the iceberg now, and I fear we’re not prepared for what is to come,” van Mourik Broekman said. She pointed to a growing body of scientific evidence identifying AI-generated misinformation as a significant risk to public health. Unlike traditional falsehoods, AI can deliver personalised information and advice that is highly convincing, tailored to individual users and difficult to detect.
Studies have demonstrated that AI chatbots can provide inaccurate and inconsistent medical advice, posing direct risks to people seeking health information. Meanwhile, Google’s AI Overviews have been found to supply misleading health content, with experts describing some examples as “really dangerous”. AI models can generate convincing but fabricated references and may incorporate poor-quality or biased sources into their analysis. The potential for such tools to amplify misconceptions about conditions, treatments and vaccines – and to undermine the trust that patients place in healthcare professionals – is a challenge that nurses say they are not yet equipped to meet.
Despite the bleak picture, the RCN’s Akorli argued that the crisis also presents an “opportunity” for nurses to rebuild trust and empower patients with accurate information. Improving health literacy and communicating with compassion, she said, can help turn the tide. The debate at the RCN’s annual congress, which took place in Liverpool from 18 to 21 May 2026, underscored the urgency of that mission, building on discussions at the previous year’s congress in Newport where nursing staff first began to articulate the scale of the problem they face every day.