Other
Jordan C. Reading, DDS (he/him/his)
Pediatric Dental Resident
Other
NYU Langone Dental Medicine- Yakima, WA
Yakima, Washington, United States
Joe Wilson, DMD
NYU Langone - Yakima
Yakima, Washington, United States
Jessica Webb, DDS
Associate Director
NYU Langone - Yakima
NYU Langone Dental Medicine
Yakima, Washington, United States
Purpose: The relationship between pediatric oral health and social media is relatively new and unstudied. The purpose of this study was to describe the most popular pediatric oral health related content on the fastest growing social media app in North America, Tiktok.
Methods: The top 10 most popular videos (based on views) from the top 10 most popular pediatric oral health related hashtags were selected. Videos were reviewed and data were collected including creator credentials, engagement, accuracy, content type and topic.
Results: Both lay people and credentialed specialists had popular TikTok videos. Lay people represented a slight majority (52%). There was an association between accuracy and credentialed status (P < .006) with credentialed specialists showing a greater degree of accuracy (100%) compared to lay people (80.77%). There was an association between viewer engagement and video type. For example, videos not coded as “Entertainment” had over twice as many comments (p < 0.026) and videos coded as “Product Placement" had significantly more views (P < .001) and likes (P < .03) overall. Topically, videos about trauma, teething, and behavior management showed the greatest engagement. (Likes: P < .001; Views: P < .003). 47% of viewed videos were excluded due to solely entertaining focus/ being void of pediatric oral health related content.
Conclusion: Popular content about pediatric dentistry on TikTok is posted by lay and credentialed professionals nearly equally. A higher degree of accuracy was found in content posted by credentialed people. Future efforts should focus on the value of entertainment in education and viewer information retention.