Evaluation of Korean-Language COVID-19–Related Medical Information on YouTube: Cross-Sectional Infodemiology Study

Abstract

Background In South Korea, the number of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases has declined rapidly and much sooner than in other countries. South Korea is one of the most digitalized countries in the world, and YouTube may have served as a rapid delivery mechanism for increasing public awareness of COVID-19. Thus, the platform may have helped the South Korean public fight the spread of the disease. Objective The aim of this study is to compare the reliability, overall quality, title–content consistency, and content coverage of Korean-language YouTube videos on COVID-19, which have been uploaded by different sources. Methods A total of 200 of the most viewed YouTube videos from January 1, 2020, to April 30, 2020, were screened, searching in Korean for the terms “Coronavirus,” “COVID,” “Corona,” “Wuhan virus,” and “Wuhan pneumonia.” Non-Korean videos and videos that were duplicated, irrelevant, or livestreamed were excluded. Source and video metrics were collected. The videos were scored based on the following criteria: modified DISCERN index, Journal of the American Medical Association Score (JAMAS) benchmark criteria, global quality score (GQS), title–content consistency index (TCCI), and medical information and content index (MICI). Results Of the 105 total videos, 37.14% (39/105) contained misleading information; independent user–generated videos showed the highest proportion of misleading information at 68.09% (32/47), while all of the government-generated videos were useful. Government agency–generated videos achieved the highest median score of DISCERN (5.0, IQR 5.0-5.0), JAMAS (4.0, IQR 4.0-4.0), GQS (4.0, IQR 3.0-4.5), and TCCI (5.0, IQR 5.0-5.0), while independent user–generated videos achieved the lowest median score of DISCERN (2.0, IQR 1.0-3.0), JAMAS (2.0, IQR 1.5-2.0), GQS (2.0, IQR 1.5-2.0), and TCCI (3.0, IQR 3.0-4.0). However, the total MICI was not significantly different among sources. “Transmission and precautionary measures” were the most commonly covered content by government agencies, news agencies, and independent users. In contrast, the most mentioned content by news agencies was “prevalence,” followed by “transmission and precautionary measures.” Conclusions Misleading videos had more likes, fewer comments, and longer running times than useful videos. Korean-language YouTube videos on COVID-19 uploaded by different sources varied significantly in terms of reliability, overall quality, and title–content consistency, but the content coverage was not significantly different. Government-generated videos had higher reliability, overall quality, and title–content consistency than independent user–generated videos.

YouTube as a source of information on gout: a quality analysis

“…This percentage of useful information was higher than those reported by previous studies (58.3–63%) assessing medical health information on YouTube videos related to hypertension, dialysis, and influenza [ 29 , 31 , 32 ]. In studies that recently analyzed misinformation about COVID-19 on YouTube [ 7 , 18 , 33 ], the percentage of useful videos was also determined to be lower (37.14–72.50%) compared to our study. Concerning rheumatic diseases, YouTube studies have shown varying results; for example, the rate of useful videos was reported as 51.4% for Sjogren’s syndrome [ 1 ] and 54.9% for rheumatoid arthritis [ 5 ], which were both lower than our study, while studies on spondyloarthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus determined similar rates to our study (86% and 83.60%, respectively) [ 8 , 9 ].…”

“…The videos meeting the inclusion criteria were evaluated in terms of usefulness and categorized as useful and misleading. In accordance with previous studies [ 7 , 20 , 21 ], the videos were considered as useful if they included scientifically accurate information about any aspect of the disease (e.g., symptoms, clinical features, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention) or misleading if they included at least one scientifically unproven information.…”

“…On the other hand, 86% of health seekers are concerned about the reliability of information available on the internet, and 44% believe only part of this information to be accurate [ 6 ]. Since YouTube has no procedure for filtering videos before posting, viewers can also be exposed to misinformation [ 7 ]. Many recent YouTube studies have drawn attention to the importance of tackling misleading information on rheumatic diseases [ 5 , 8 , 9 ].…”

“…YouTube is one of the most prevalent sources of online health information [ 18 ]. However, there are concerns about the reliability and quality of online health information [ 7 ]. To our knowledge, there is no study that evaluated the content, reliability, and quality of gout-related videos posted on YouTube.…”

Characterizing the COVID-19 Infodemic on Chinese Social Media: Exploratory Study

“…The results showed that 40% of this information was from unreliable sources [ 22 ]. At the same time, Moon et al [ 39 ] collected 200 of the most viewed Korean-language YouTube videos on COVID-19 published from January 1 to April 30, 2020. They found that 37.14% of the videos contained misinformation, and independent videos generated by the user showed the highest proportion of misinformation at 68.09%, whereas all government-generated videos were regarded as useful.…”