The usefulness of YouTube videos on lung cancer

Abstract

Background The use of social media as a source of health information is increasing, and the usefulness of the content may vary depending on the specific disease. Thus, this study was designed to assess the content, viewer engagement and usefulness of the most viewed YouTube videos on lung cancer. Methods 167 videos were reviewed, and 143 met the eligibility criteria. Two authors evaluated the videos separately, and data on views, likes, dislikes and comments were extracted, and data on the source of uploader, duration and content quality were recorded. Results 89 videos (62%) were classified as useful, 8 (6%) as misleading and 46 (32%) as neither. The misleading videos were significantly more popular in terms of views and likes compared with the useful videos: 845 643 versus 81 700, P = 0.003 and 12 170 versus 415, P < 0.001, respectively. Conclusions This study shows that YouTube videos on lung cancer are popular and that around two-thirds of the videos are useful in terms of patient education. However, the misleading videos are currently attracting higher viewer interaction and might compose a future challenge in terms of the spread of misinformation as the algorithms will prioritize popular videos rather than videos with evidence-based information.

Evaluation of Turkish videos about breast self-examination on YouTube

“…Diers et al [31] reported that the videos of uploaders other than healthcare professionals were more popular. Meteran et al [30] determined that misleading videos were more popular (30). In contrast, in our study, there was no significant difference between the upload source groups in terms of total views, video length, time since upload, daily views, VPI, comprehensiveness score, or total video score.…”

“…In the literature, different rates of usefulness have been reported concerning YouTube videos on different subjects. For example, the rate of useful videos was found to be over 60% for those with spondylarthritis [29], 62% for those with lung cancer [30], 65.4% for those with asthma [31], and 22% for those on endoscopic transsphenoidal surgery [32]. In addition, Esen et al [26] reported the rate of useful videos to be [26].…”