YouTube™ as a source of information on prostatitis: A quality and reliability analysis

Abstract

Abstract It was aimed to analyze the YouTube™ videos on prostatitis regarding their source, content, and information included. The term “prostatitis” was searched by relevance and the first 200 video links and features were recorded. Using the 5- point modified DISCERN tool, Global Quality Score (GQS), and the Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) score, quality and reliability of the information were assessed by two urologists. The most common source of upload was doctors/medical institutions (33%), and majority of the content was about general information (27%). The mean modified DISCERN, GQS and JAMA scores were 3.24, 3.25 and 2.17, respectively. These scores were correlated with each other and significantly higher in videos uploaded by doctors/medical institutions. Of the videos, 25.5% were poor, 30.5% were moderate, and 44% were high-quality. High-quality videos were significantly shorter than poor qualities. Poor-quality videos had the highest view ratio. The most of YouTube™ videos on prostatitis are short and high-quality videos uploaded by doctors/medical institutions. However, these videos did not reach the view ratios they deserved.