JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Approximately 80% of internet users access health information online and especially patients with chronic illnesses rely on internet-based resources. YouTubeTM ranks second among the most accessed websites worldwide and hosts an increasing number of videos with medical information. However, its quality is sometimes unscientific, misleading or even harmful.

Objective:

As little is known about YouTubeTM as a source of information on psoriasis, we aimed to investigate the quality of psoriasis-related videos and, if necessary, point out strategies for their improvement.

Methods:

The quality of the 100 most-viewed psoriasis-related videos were assessed using the DISCERN instrument and the Global Quality Scale (GQS), by categorising the videos into “useful”, “misleading” and “dangerous” and by evaluating the receptions of the video-clips by users.

Results:

Evaluation of the videos exhibited a total of 117`221`391 views and a total duration of 10:28h. The majority of clips contained anecdotal personal experiences with “complementary & alternative psoriasis (CAM) treatments”, “topical treatments” and “nutrition/diets” being the most frequently addressed topics. While advertisements accounted for 26% of the video-clips, evidence-based health information amounted to only 13%. Thirty-two percent of the videos were classified as “useful”, 52% as “misleading” and 11% as even “dangerous”. The quality of the videos evaluated by the DISCERN and GQS scores was generally low (1.87 and 1.95, respectively, on a 0-5 scale with 5 being the maximum). Moreover, we found that viewers rated poor quality better than higher quality videos.

Conclusions:

Our in-depth study demonstrates that nearly two thirds of the psoriasis-related videos we analysed disseminate misleading or even dangerous content. Subjective anecdotal and unscientific content is disproportionately overrepresented and poor quality videos are predominantly rated positively by users, while higher quality video-clips receive less positive ratings. Strategies by professional dermatological organizations are urgently needed to improve the quality of information on psoriasis on YouTube and other social media.