Medical reliability of a video‐sharing website: The gingival recession model

Abstract

Communication of health information is considered a cornerstone for the success of any treatment. This includes patient education that is a relevant component of health care, and continuing education that is critical in professional development.It is the responsibility of healthcare professionals to provide patients with healthcare information in relation to their condition. Nevertheless, this role is changing nowadays with the increasing use of the Internet to seek health care-related information. The considerable penetration and the free accessibility of the Internet boost the patients' desires to be self-informed, at the expense of the face-to-face professional interview. 1-3 Increasing number of consumers are using social media to seek information and support for health-related issues. 4 It has been shown that 59% of US adults have looked online for health information in 2012. 5 This implies Abstract Objectives: To evaluate the quality of the scientific/clinical information in dentistry delivered by videos hosted by a popular video-sharing website. Methods: The gingival recession condition was used as a model and YouTube™ as the video hosting service. A systematic observation of videos containing information on gingival recession was conducted. Videos were analysed to evaluate (i) the scientific reliability and quality of the information using Global Quality Scale (GQS) and DISCREN criteria; and (ii) the understandability of this information using a tailormade custom comprehensiveness index (CI). Results: One hundred and eighty videos were identified. Videos dealing with surgical procedures were not included in the present review. After selection, 41 videos were analysed. The mean GQS was 2.34 on a 0-5 scale, and 25 (61%) videos showed clear aims according to DISCREN criteria. Misleading content was observed in eight videos (19.5%). The scientific sources of information were unclear in 26 (63.4%) videos. All videos failed to give additional references for supplemental information. Only three videos (7%) provided basic information on aetiology, clinical presentations and management of gingival recession. Based on 0-2 CI scores, three, nine and 29 videos had a score of 2, 1 and 0, respectively. Conclusion:The present model indicates that social media websites aiming to provide health information should be carefully accounted, especially when dealing with dentistry. It also suggests professional involvement to improve the quality of the delivered information. K E Y W O R D Seducation, gingival recession, health communication, information quality, video, YouTube

Evaluation of information quality on the internet for periodontal disease patients

“…In the present study, it was seen that the quality of the accessible information for patients on the Internet about periodontal disease is inadequate. Similarly, recent studies evaluating the quality of information in the field of oral health that is available on the Internet reported rather low scores (Alsoghier, Riordain, Fedele, & Porter, 2018;Hamdan, Shaqman, Abu Karaky, Hassona, & Bouchard, 2019;Passos et al, 2020;Schwendicke et al, 2017).…”

“…The traditional knowledge dynamics of the patient–clinician relationship has been appropriately challenged, and recent reforms in the law surrounding consent necessitate clinicians to be prepared to discuss dental care with patients, who may show up with inappropriate information obtained from online resources. Based on the growing influence of the web support, dental schools and educators should take more responsibility and put more effort to provide a professional control of the scientific information that is accessible to the society (Hamdan et al., 2019;Kovalski et al., 2019).…”

The appeal of ‘Do It Yourself’ orthodontic aligners: A YouTube analysis

“…These findings are in accordance with previous papers relating to orthodontics 19,38,42 and the medical and dental field. 23,25,29,39,[47][48][49][50] Given the low informational completeness, reliability, and quality of the videos available on YouTube, the internet site should not be recommended to patients nor the public as a reliable source of information.…”

“…The GQS was originally designed to evaluate the quality of educational information of websites deemed important by patients and clinicians in medicine 27 but has been extensively used to rate the quality of YouTube videos in medicine and dentistry. 19,24,26,[28][29][30][31][32][33]…”

The availability of open‐access videos offered by dental schools

“…The drawback with sites such as YouTube is that many dental students do not possess robust critical reasoning tools and they will not be overly concerned whether the content comes from a formal or informal source . If the video matches up with their perceived learning needs, then they will be happy to access those materials that are on offer, but YouTube dental educational content is usually considered unreliable, biased or misleading …”