YouTube as a Source of Patient Education for Pelvic Organ Prolapse Procedures

Objectives: This study aims to quantitatively evaluate the educational quality of popular YouTube videos available for pelvic organ prolapse (POP).

Methods: The term “pelvic organ prolapse” was searched in Google Trends. The top 10 related search terms were identified and used to query YouTube. The first 100 videos from each search term were collected. A total of 1000 videos were screened, with duplicates, non-English videos, or videos selling products or services excluded. Qualitative and quantitative factors for each video meeting criteria were collected, and the content of the video was then analyzed by two independent reviewers using three scoring systems. DISCERN and Global Quality Scale (GQS), two commonly used 5-point scoring systems used to evaluate video quality, and Patient Education Materials Assessment Tools (PEMAT), a scoring system used to evaluate the understandability and actionability of videos. A video was deemed high quality if it met two of the three following scores: DISCERN of 4 or higher, GQS of 4 or higher, or PEMAT of 75% or greater.

Results: A total of 290 videos met the inclusion criteria, comprising 26,612,232 views. Of the 290 videos reviewed, an average video was 15 minutes in length, with 92,083 views, and had an average channel subscriber count of 191,993. Thirty-four percent of all videos were published by an educational medical organization (N 98), 22% were published by independent physician or physician groups (N 63), 17% by a physical therapist (N 50), and only 4% by patients (N 12). The average DISCERN score was 2.86 (SD 0.73), and the average GQS score was 3.03 (SD 1.42). The average PEMAT understandability and actionability scores were 75% (SD 14.6) and 40% (SD 37.6), respectively. Only 4.8% (N 14) of videos met the high-quality criteria. Logistic regression demonstrated no significant variables —video age, subscriber count, video views, video duration, number of comments, library size, category of video publisher, video index, or if video contained animations— predicted video quality.

Conclusions: Despite the large number of YouTube videos discussing POP, the majority are of low quality. Interestingly, no difference in quality was observed between different video publisher types, including the physician and medical organization groups. Moreover, none of the studied variables, including length and views, predicted quality. While these results may, in part, be due to the small sample size of high-quality videos, it also emphasizes a need for high-quality educational videos. As patients increasingly turn to YouTube and other social media platforms, it is important for physicians to be able to identify and understand what factors are associated with high-quality videos. Further work is needed to identify what factors predict high-quality videos.