Australians are increasingly diagnosing themselves with complex mental health conditions after scrolling through social media or chatting with artificial intelligence in a shift experts say risks misdiagnosis, delayed treatment and worsening symptoms.

Clinical psychologist Professor Jill Newby from UNSW Sydney says the rise in people diagnosing themselves with conditions such as ADHD or OCD after seeing relatable online content is becoming a serious concern.

"When you're looking at information online or watching videos, you might not even be searching for that information," she tells AAP.

"But it's relatable - you can empathise with that person or see similarities in your own experience - and that can lead you down a rabbit hole of self-diagnosis."

Prof Newby says the language of diagn

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