Fierce Healthcare April 22, 2022
Mental health professionals are concerned about the consequences of a new online trend popular among youth.
The recently popularized term is “grippy sock vacation,” mostly prevalent on social media. It comes from the non-skid socks given during psychiatric hospitalization when a patient’s laced shoes are confiscated for their safety. Providers worry the terminology may play down mental health treatment, contribute to stigma and sensationalize psychiatric hospitalization.
It was first searched online in the U.S. in September 2021, according to Google Trends, with searches peaking that winter at 100 hits. On Facebook, the first public post using the term was Oct. 1, 2021, according to CrowdTangle data, by a user with 193,000 followers whose page identifies them as...