TikTok videos of eczema-related content have ‘extensive shortcomings’

TikTok videos of eczema-related content were frequently lacking in quality regardless of whether they had been created by health care professionals, according to study findings.

“We conducted a cross-sectional study to compare viewer engagement, content quality and viewer experience of eczema-related medical content on TikTok between health care professionals and non-health care professionals,” Sabrina Khan, BS, of the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California, and colleagues wrote.

The analysis included the top 60 videos uploaded between Feb. 13, 2020, and Jan. 21, 2022, that resulted from a search for the terms “eczema” and “eczema treatment.” English language content with text or audio were included.

Health care professionals were defined as dermatologists, pediatricians, pharmacists and nurses.

Video quality was assessed by DISCERN, a validated 16-item tool rated on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being the lowest quality and 5 being the highest quality. In addition, videos were rated for overall viewing experience using the Armstrong Viewer Assessment (AVA) tool.

Results showed that videos created by health care professionals yielded a DISCERN score of 2.4 ± 0.1, whereas those created by non-health care professionals had a score 1.62 ± 0.05 (P < .001).

That said, the researchers noted that there were “extensive shortcomings” in videos created by both groups.

For the viewing experience, results showed that videos created by health care professionals had an AVA score of 3.18 ± 0.16 compared with 2.42 ± 0.09 for non-health care professionals (P < .001)

There was particular concern that videos created by non-professionals promoted eczema treatments that may be ineffective or harmful, such as breast milk or restrictive diets.

The researchers suggested that clinicians should use TikTok to create content that includes not only information on biologics and steroids, but also information that is important to patients, such as adverse events.

“Given its extensive network of users, TikTok has the potential to serve as a powerful tool for the dissemination of accurate dermatologic medical content,” the researchers concluded. “However, efforts need to be focused on creating evidence-based educational content and providing reliable sources.”