Media hype regarding psychedelic treatments for depression and PTSD from 2017 to 2024
Audrey G. Evers, Elizabeth C. Stade, Aadesh Salecha, Zoe Tait, Gabriela Khazanov
Scientific Reports April 25, 2026 Peer reviewed DOI: 10.1038/s41598-026-50186-x via OpenAlex
Summary
Media coverage of psychedelics as mental health treatments is more positive and less focused on risks than coverage of FDA-approved antidepressants. An analysis of 6,805 news publications from 2017 to 2024 found that positive emotion and sentiment were more strongly linked to psychedelics, while negative emotion and risk language were more associated with antidepressants. However, reward language was more tied to antidepressants, and negative sentiment was more tied to psychedelics than expected. This imbalance may shape patient expectations and treatment outcomes.
Study at a glance
| Design | observational study using natural language processing and logistic regression |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 6,805 |
| Population | news publications from LexisNexis (2017-2024) covering psychedelics and antidepressants |
| Key finding | Media coverage of psychedelics is more positive and less risk-focused than coverage of antidepressants, which may influence patient expectations and adherence. |
Abstract
Enthusiastic media coverage of psychedelics as a treatment for mental health disorders is perceived as hyped compared to coverage of established treatments. To measure potential hype, we conducted pre-registered analyses comparing media coverage (e.g., newspaper articles) of psychedelics to FDA-approved antidepressants for major depressive disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder. We used LexisNexis to access publications from 2017 to 2024 and natural language processing to analyze 6,805 publications’ sentiment and content. Binary logistic regressions compared the language in paragraphs related to psychedelics, antidepressants, both, or neither. As expected, in binomial regressions, positive emotion and sentiment were more strongly associated with media coverage of psychedelics than antidepressants (β = 0.21; β = 0.67, both p < .001), and negative emotion and risk language were more strongly associated with antidepressants than psychedelics (β = 0.25; β = 0.23, both p < .001). Contrary to expectations, reward language was more strongly related to antidepressants (β = 0.19, p < .001), and negative sentiment was more strongly related to psychedelics (β = 0.17, p < .001). Overall, results suggest that media coverage emphasizes the purported benefits of psychedelics and drawbacks of established medications, which may impact patient expectations, adherence with treatment, and patient outcomes.