Plastic Surgery on YouTube

Abstract

Background: YouTube is the most accessed video website in the world. It hosts a variety of medical content. Plastic surgery-related content on YouTube has not been investigated before. In this study, we analyzed the most prevalent plastic surgery-related content available on YouTube. Methods: Search terms were selected to cover the broad topics of plastic surgery. The top 20 most-viewed videos returned for each search term were analyzed. The videos were classified by the type of content, authorship, number of views, and number of likes. Data were collected and analyzed using Microsoft Excel (2016) program. Results: Out of the 280 videos analyzed, “patient experience” was the most prevalent content type. Thirty percent of the analyzed videos were uploaded by medical centers, and 29% were uploaded from personal accounts. Educational video content constituted 6% of the total videos analyzed. Entertainment was the most prevalent (60%) content type returned when “plastic surgery” was used as the search term. Conclusions: YouTube is an underutilized social media platform by plastic surgeons. The entertainment industry is taking advantage of the social media platform to attract and gain millions of views. Educational videos are low in number and quality.

Quality and Reliability of YouTube for Patient Information on Neurotoxins

“…As vlogging (video logging) has increased in recent years, it is important to understand the quality, reliability, and influence of vloggers (video loggers) on consumers, especially among generation Z, with some vloggers having upwards of 100 million subscribers. 21 While there have been studies that have assessed the quality of information of YouTube videos on Botox, 15 plastic surgery, 16 and aesthetic surgical procedures, 17 there has been no such study analyzing both the source reliability and educational value of YouTube videos on neurotoxin procedures.…”

“…14 As a result, information contained within these videos can consist of unreliable or potentially inaccurate medical information that may pose a detriment to a patient's health and allure patients toward certain procedures. While there have been studies that have assessed the quality of information of YouTube videos on Botox, 15 plastic surgery, 16 and aesthetic surgical procedures, 17 there has been no such study analyzing both the source reliability and educational value of YouTube videos on neurotoxin procedures. In this study, we aim to assess the content, video characteristics, source reliability, and educational value of YouTube videos regarding neurotoxin treatments.…”

Cosmetic surgery on YouTube: a content analysis of East Asian blepharoplasty-related videos in South Korea

“…J Cosmet Med 2020;4(2):69-74 https://doi.org/10.25056/JCM.2020. 4 www.jcosmetmed.org port of NAS Media (Seoul, Korea), watching of online videos is a generalized activity, which people of all age groups (10-60 years) engage in. A total of 94.6% people across all age groups are reported to watch online videos in Korea.…”

“…Because of the increasing number of people who use You-Tube on a daily basis, many industries are utilizing it as a social media platform to promote their businesses. A number of studies have been conducted on YouTube content and its influence [4][5][6]. Although several studies have been conducted on plastic surgery-related YouTube content, there seem to be very few that have analyzed non-English content.…”

“…Various studies have analyzed and assessed plastic surgeryrelated videos on YouTube. Some of them have found these videos to be uninformative or unreliable when analyzed in English [4,5]. Further, the aesthetic surgery-related content in Korean has not been analyzed by any research study.…”