Discussion
There has been a strong increase in access to health-related information on YouTube due to free access and ease of use [15]. There is no system that checks the quality of the videos or the accuracy of the information in the videos during uploading. Although social media, especially YouTube, is very beneficial for both patients and healthcare professionals, who use it to educate themselves, these platforms carry risks such as the availability of incorrect, uncontrolled and incomplete information [16]; therefore, in order to improve the content of YouTube videos related to health, video sources should be checked and the videos should be evaluated for the accuracy of the information they contain [17, 18]. In the present study, we wanted to examine the content and quality of the content of videos about vertigo on YouTube. There are many studies in the literature that examine videos on YouTube about various diseases and treatments [8-10, 18]. To our knowledge, this was the first study that objectively evaluates the quality and reliability of information about “vertigo” on YouTube.
When we examined the videos about vertigo, we observed that most of the videos consisted of videos containing general information about vertigo and videos showing how to do the maneuvers. Kerber et al. analyzed YouTube videos on the Epley maneuver and reported that 64% of the videos were accurately demonstrated Epley maneuver [19]. Our view on this is that if a physician directs the patient to YouTube videos after telling the patient what maneuver to do after making the diagnosis, it will be very helpful. However, it should be kept in mind that if patients turn to these videos before they are fully diagnosed, their symptoms may worsen.
When we examined the videos according to their content, we observed that the majority of the videos (66.7%) had low content although most of the videos were uploaded by healthcare professionals (36.2%). Correlation of the content scoring with GQS and modified DISCERN shows us that the content scoring we have made is consistent. Most of the previous studies, except for a small part [20, 21], showed that health-related videos on YouTube had low content, in line with our study [8, 22, 23].
While previous studies revealed a positive correlation between the duration of the videos and the information content, no such correlation was observed in the present study [8, 12, 24]. Paksoy et al. found a positive correlation between the total content score and video duration but did not find a correlation between the total content score and the number of comments, likes, dislikes, interaction index and viewing rate [17]. In our own study, we did not find a correlation between the total content score and the number of comments, likes and dislikes, interaction index and viewing rate, and unlike the study of Paksoy et al., we did not find any correlation between total content score and video duration.
When high content and low content videos were compared, no significant difference was found in terms of video length, number of views, number of comments, likes and dislikes, interaction index, power index and viewing rate. This shows us that low content videos are watched as much as high content videos. Previous studies present various results about this and there is no correlation between publications. For example, the results of the study conducted by Paksoy et al. are similar to ours [17]. In the study of Üstün et al. [8], the results were similar to ours, but unlike our study, they found a significant difference between high and low content videos in terms of video duration.
The videos uploaded by the laypersons are all testimonial videos in which they convey their personal experiences. When all testimonial videos were compared with educational videos in terms of video characteristics, we found that there was no significant difference between the 2 groups. In other words, vertigo searchers are curious about the experiences of the people as well as the educational information.
The study has several limitations. We used Google Trends to find the most commonly used keyword in this regard, but when searching on YouTube with a different keyword, different results may be obtained. The results are likely to vary constantly, as the data on YouTube changes with every passing moment. There is a shortage of videos available in other languages, as only videos in English are reviewed. There was no validated assessment tool to examine the content of the videos. For this reason, a content score scheme was created jointly by two authors of the present study, taking inspiration from previous studies, and examinations were made accordingly.