Quantitative Analysis of YouTube Video Reliability, Quality and Content as Patient
Information Source for Total Hip Arthroplasty
Objectives
As the second most popular social media platform with 2 billion monthly users globally, YouTube is increasingly used by patients for medical information. This study’s aim was to quantitatively analyze the reliability, quality, and content of YouTube videos as a patient information source for total hip arthroplasty (THA).
Methods
We performed a cross-sectional analysis May 2020, querying the first 50 YouTube videos using “total hip arthroplasty” or “total hip replacement” and sorting by source: academic, physician, non-physician/trainer, patient, and commercial. The Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) benchmark criteria score (score range 0-4) was used to assess reliability, while the DISCERN score (range 0-80) and a THA content-specific score (range 0-15) created for this study assessed video’s health information quality/content. Two-sample t-tests/multivariate analysis were performed to identify statistically significant differences based on source.
Results
50 videos were analyzed (18 academic, 18 physician, 8 non-physician/trainer, 4 patient, 2 commercial). Mean number of views and video duration were 139,725 views and 13.7 minutes respectively. Academic videos reported higher benchmark JAMA score relative to non-physician (2.4 vs. 0.9, p<0.001) videos. Mean overall DISCERN score was 47.9 with significant differences between academic and non-physician/trainer videos (54.7 vs. 31.5, p<0.001), and physician vs patient videos (51.5 vs. 39.5, p=0.01). Multivariate analysis revealed physician videos were associated with higher odds ratio (OR) of good/excellent DISCERN score (>51/80) than non-physician videos (OR:10.8; 95% CI:[2.5-45.5]; p=0.001). Mean THA content score was 8.6 with significant differences between academic vs. non-physician videos (8.6 vs. 4.6, p<0.001).
Conclusion And Implication
There is significant variability to reliability, quality and content of THA videos, depending on video source. While non-physician/trainer, patient and commercial videos are generally of low quality, academic and physician videos are associated with fair/ good information. Healthcare providers and physicians should be aware of counseling patients and directing them to higher quality YouTube THA videos as a potential source of supplemental information.