Do ‘Videos’ sections of Internet search engines provide accurate and adequate information about totally implantable venous access ports?

Abstract

Objective: After cancer diagnosis, patients often look to Internet to learn more about totally implantable venous access ports which improve compliance with systemic anticancer therapy, as they do not get enough information from healthcare professionals. The aim of this study was to evaluate the video quality on Internet about totally implantable venous access ports using the most used three Internet search engines worldwide. Methods: ‘Videos’ sections of the most used three Internet search engines were queried using ‘Chemotherapy Port’, ‘Port Catheter’ and ‘Totally Implantable Venous Access Ports’ keywords. First, 50 results of each keyword in each search engine were analysed and evaluated according to a novel scoring system created by authors (totally implantable venous access port video evaluation score), Journal of the American Medical Association score and modified DISCERN score by independent reviewers. Obtained data were analysed by descriptive statistics, Kruskal–Wallis and chi-square tests. Results: Of the 450 videos, 229 were evaluated. The total video length was 1394.38 min. The mean video length was 6.08 ± 5.39 min, and the mean video view count was 32,553.71 ± 83,524.23. Mean Journal of the American Medical Association score, modified DISCERN score and totally implantable venous access port video evaluation score were 2.33 ± 0.90, 2.43 ± 1.59 and 3.54 ± 3.47, respectively. According to totally implantable venous access port video evaluation score, of the videos, 1.3% were remarkable, 5.2% were useful, 25.8% were poor and 67.7% were useless. Of the videos, 36.7% have been presented by healthcare professionals. Mean Journal of the American Medical Association score, modified DISCERN score and totally implantable venous access port video evaluation score of these videos were 3.11 ± 0.68, 3.97 ± 0.93 and 4.69 ± 4.25, respectively (p = 0.000, p = 0.000 and p = 0.003, respectively). Conclusion: Internet search engines’ ‘Videos’ sections have the potential of providing information about totally implantable venous access ports. However, they are vulnerable to providing unreliable information. This study has showed that videos about totally implantable venous access ports are insufficient in terms of reliability and integrity and may mislead patients.