Therapeutic social media guidelines for young adults: A Delphi study

Abstract The mental health of young adults is well recognized as requiring serious attention in research and consequently health policy. At the same time, social media has been demonstrated to create therapeutic and non-therapeutic opportunities for young adults who access them for social communication, wellbeing, information seeking, and self-management reasons. Social workers broadly need to understand both the therapeutic opportunities and the potential risks associated with social media use, as these environments are firmly positioned within the psychosocial framework. Concern surrounding the potential risks to vulnerable populations accessing social media prompts calls for guidelines to inform the integration of digital tools with social work practice. Hence social workers require guidance about how younger adults may leverage social media to maximize their supportive and therapeutic opportunities, while minimizing any potential associated risks. This Delphi study recruited a group of Master of Social Work students as experts and Mental Health Social Workers as stakeholders, to establish a set of consensus-based therapeutic social media guidelines for young adults, to inform young adults and social workers alike. Twenty-nine items achieved the consensus threshold for inclusion in the therapeutic social media guidelines for young adults.