Evaluating YouTube as a Source of Patient Information for Blefaroplasty

Abstract

AbstractThis study aims to evaluate the content and quality of popular videos about blepharoplasty treatment in YouTube. Four keywords “blepharoplasty,” “upper blepharoplasty,” “lower blepharoplasty,” and “blepharoplasty information” were searched in YouTube. After the videos were sorted by the number of views, the last 50 videos were based on general characteristics, primary purpose, information content, relevance, audiovisual quality, as well as viewer interaction index DISCERN score (minimum–maximum: 16–75), Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) score (minimum–maximum: 0–4), and Global Quality score (minimum–maximum: 0–5), and view rate formulas were calculated for each video. A total of the best 49 videos were evaluated in our study. The total number of views of these videos was 10,938,976. The total duration of these videos was 409minutes. The average duration of the videos was 8.35±8.38 (standard deviation [SD]). There was no significant (p>0.05) correlation between the measurement of DISCERN scores of the two observers. A significant (p<0.05) difference was observed between the JAMA score measurements of the two observers. There was no significant difference (p>0.05) between the GQS score measurements of the two observers. Currently, YouTube is not a viable resource for patients to learn about blepharoplasty. Physicians should be aware of the limitations and provide up-to-date and peer-reviewed content on the web site, and patients should also be warned about obtaining information.