Is YouTube a reliable source of information for intravesical Botox therapy?

Objectives: Social media has become a vital platform for patients to seek health information, with YouTube attracting over 122 million daily users and 1 billion hours of content consumed every day. Consequently, there is a growing body of literature assessing the accuracy and reliability of health-related YouTube videos. This study aimed to evaluate available YouTube videos on intravesical Botox treatment for overactive bladder (OAB).

Methods: Ninety-seven videos were initially identified and stratified by relevance, with 36 meeting the inclusion criteria. Two validated tools, the DISCERN instrument and the Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool (PEMAT), were used to evaluate each video's quality, understandability, and actionability. Two reviewers independently evaluated each video, with a moderate intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) of 0.75 indicating consistency between the reviewers.

Results: Of the videos evaluated, 69.4% included a physician, 83.3% focused on patient education, and 19.4% discussed patient experience. However, the video quality was suboptimal, with a mean DISCERN score of 41.98 indicating poor quality. The understandability and actionability of the videos were also found to be inadequate, with mean PEMAT scores of 0.57 and 0.355, respectively.

Conclusions: The study findings reveal a dearth of reliable and informative YouTube videos regarding Botox for OAB, and the content available is inadequate. The current findings highlight the importance of urogynecologists and healthcare professionals developing understandable and high-quality social media content to provide accurate information to patients. With the growing concern for misinformation on social media, creating informative and reliable health-related content is crucial. Furthermore, future research should investigate the effectiveness of social media content in improving patient outcomes and reducing healthcare disparities