‘Quite reassuring’: Nearly 75% of YouTube videos on myositis provide useful information
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Approximately 74% of YouTube videos on myositis provide useful information, with nearly half of useful videos created by professional medical societies or patient support groups, according to data published in Clinical Rheumatology.
“In the digital era that we live, eight of 10 users access health information on the internet,” Mrudula Joshi, MD, of Byramjee Jeejeebhoy Government Medical College and Sassoon General Hospitals, in Prune, India, and colleagues wrote. “Of the various sources, YouTube is the second most popular search platform worldwide. It is also one of the most visited platforms for seeking health-related information, especially for rare disorders of health.
“Although the information on YouTube is subjected to a stringent copyright check, the same cannot be said about their reliability and quality-check process,” they added. “The misinformation on the internet makes it imperative to secure an understanding of the quality of health-related disease-specific information online. Recent quality assessment studies on rheumatic diseases like systemic lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthritis and gout have identified content that may not be useful and even misleading at times.”
To investigate the quality of myositis-related videos on YouTube, Joshi and colleagues conducted a cross-sectional study in March 2021, searching the platform for specific keywords. These included “myositis,” “idiopathic inflammatory myositis,” “dermatomyositis,” “polymyositis,” “cancer-associated myositis,” “inclusion body myositis,” “immune-mediated necrotizing myopathy,” “juvenile dermatomyositis” and “overlap idiopathic inflammatory myositis.” The researchers included the first 10 pages of results, identifying 100 videos for each topic.
To be included in the analysis, videos had to be in English, feature content primarily related to myositis and have “acceptable” audio and video quality. Two evaluators classified included videos as “useful,” “not very useful,” “misleading” or “patient narratives.” Data on video titles, hosting channels, upload dates, categories, length, source and number of views, likes and dislikes were also collected. The videos were rated according to the DISCERN scale.
The analysis included a total of 453 videos. Of these video, 74% were deemed as providing “useful” content, while 2% were characterized as “not very useful,” according to the researchers. Out of all the included videos, 24% were patient narratives. In addition, 71% of videos targeted solely for patients, while 69% were for providers and students. Approximately 47% of the videos deemed “useful” were published by professional medical societies or patient support groups, while most of the “not very useful” videos were published by “nonmedical media,” the researchers wrote.
“The present study is one of its kind to study characteristics of information on sub-specialisms like myositis available on YouTube and report that the content is reliable with minimal misinformation,” Joshi and colleagues wrote. “Nearly three-quarters of the videos are from verifiable sources, and the results are quite reassuring.”
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