Resident Physician Stony Brook University School of Medicine
Introduction: Urinary tract infections (UTI) are highly prevalent, affecting 50-80% of women with up to 44% percent of those women suffering from recurrent UTI. The rising presence of social media has offered a wide array of publicly available medical information. We sought to investigate the quality of information for UTI on YouTube.
Methods: A YouTube search was performed using the keyword ‘urinary tract infection’ and the top 200 viewed videos were analyzed. The videos were analyzed by four reviewers for video metrics, user engagement, and content through DISCERN and Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool (PEMAT) scores. Exclusion criteria included videos that exceeded twenty minutes in duration, were non-English, duplicated, unrelated, or were presentations for medical professionals.
Results: A total of 54 videos met inclusion criteria with a total of 12,772,587 views. The average video length was 5 (SD 3.6) minutes. Fifty-two percent (n=28) of videos were produced by non-medical institutions. Forty-two percent of videos (n=23) featured a physician with only 11% (n=6) featuring a urologist. Median DISCERN quality score was 3 (1-5) with 67% rated as moderate to poor quality (DISCERN = 3). Videos featuring a physician had a higher DISCERN quality score than those that did not (4 vs 3, p=0.021). The median PEMAT understandability and actionability scores were 91 (28-100) and 67 (0-100) respectively. Sixty-nine percent (n=37) of videos promoted home remedies and supplements for treatment and prevention of UTIs. Vaginal estrogen therapy was mentioned in seven percent (n=4) of videos as a preventive treatment for UTIs. Thirty-three percent (n=18) of videos contained potentially misleading information with a total of 4,130,906 views.
Conclusions: One third of the most popular videos on YouTube discussing UTIs presented misleading information and less than a quarter of the videos featured a urologist. Interestingly, over two thirds of the videos promoted home remedies for treatment and prevention of UTIs. With the ever-growing role of social media in contemporary society, a stronger physician presence on YouTube and other social media platforms can help deliver accurate and accessible information to the public.
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