Assessing the Quality of Patient Information for Cholesteatoma on the
Video Sharing Platform YouTube
Abstract
Objectives: The objective of this study is to assess quality of the most
popular cholesteatoma videos on YouTube using recognized scoring systems
and to determine if video quality metrics correlated with video
popularity based on likes and views Design: Cross sectional survey of
available data Setting: Metadata acquisition using YouTube searches
using Australian IP addresses Participants: Three independent
neuro-otologists partaking in scoring videos Main outcome measures: Each
video was viewed and scored by three independent assessors using both a
novel tool to score the usefulness of the video as well as the validated
DISCERN scoring tool. Popularity metrics were analyzed and compared to
video popularity. Results: A total of 90 YouTube videos were analyzed
with an average 55,292 views per video with an average of 271 likes and
22 dislikes. The inter-rater correlation was moderate with Fleiss-kappa
score 0.42 [P < 0.01] using a novel scoring tool for
cholesteatoma and inter-rater correlation coefficient was 0.78 [95%
CI = 0.58 - 0.90] indicating good reliability for DISCERN scores. The
overall video quality was poor with higher DISCERN scores found in
videos uploaded from Academic Institutions. Conclusions: Informative
video quality on YouTube on cholesteatoma is overall of poor quality.
Videos with unclassified sources or more dislikes correlated poorly with
video quality. Given the increase in patients turning to the internet
for information regarding their health conditions, otology and
otolaryngology societies should be encouraged to publish high quality
YouTube videos on cholesteatoma and other ear conditions.