How to use YouTube to enhance diabetes care and education
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Key takeaways:
- High-quality YouTube videos can help inform and empower people with diabetes.
- Providers should carefully analyze a video for misinformation before recommending it to clients.
HOUSTON — Diabetes care and education specialists can use YouTube to recommend or deliver high-quality educational content for people with diabetes, according to a presenter.
In a poster presentation at the Association of Diabetes Care & Education Specialists annual meeting, Han-Hung Huang, PT, PhD, associate professor in the department of physical therapy at Angelo State University, Texas, said YouTube should be viewed as a crucial tool for enhancing diabetes care and education. Huang and colleagues said in the poster that 36.6% of people with diabetes watch health-related videos on YouTube, making it a platform that diabetes care and education specialists can use to extend services outside of their clinic.
“One in three of [people with diabetes] may already use YouTube to learn about diabetes,” Huang told Healio. “If used wisely, YouTube can be a useful tool for diabetes care and education specialists.”
In the poster, Huang and colleagues discussed several benefits that stem from providing diabetes care and education through YouTube videos. Videos can empower people with diabetes in the management of their disease. They can also provide access to information for people with diabetes living in underserved communities.
While YouTube may be a good platform for conveying information, Huang said the content on it can be low quality and multiple studies have shown the odds of finding a video with misleading information are high. Before recommending a video to people with diabetes, Huang advised diabetes care and education specialists to carefully review the content and perform a critical appraisal to assess the sources, reliability, accuracy, comprehensiveness and overall usefulness. Providers should also be specific when recommending YouTube videos and offer people with diabetes ways to discuss the videos after watching them.
Huang said there are numerous benefits for diabetes care and education specialists who start their own YouTube channel. In addition to connecting to people with diabetes through an alternate means and enhancing their engagement in diabetes management, Huang said a channel could also lead to the development of peer and social support groups.
“[Diabetes care and education specialists can] make a bigger impact on people with diabetes,” Huang said. “There is a significance behind every single view because each view count might mean that there is a person with diabetes being influenced by our content.”
Starting a YouTube channel could also be a way to recruit participants for those conducting clinical research, according to Huang. Other benefits of having a YouTube channel are that it can help with professional development, increase professional reputation, be used as a marketing tool for clinical practice and promote the diabetes care and education specialist profession.
Collapse
Huang H, et al. P508. Presented at: ADCES23; Aug. 4-7, 2023; Houston.
Read more about
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts