Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: May 13, 2021
Open Peer Review Period: May 13, 2021 - May 21, 2021
Date Accepted: Aug 7, 2021
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
TikTok as a health information source: An assessment of the quality of information in diabetes-related videos
ABSTRACT
Background:
Diabetes has become one of the most prevalent chronic diseases nowadays, and many people living with diabetes use social media to seek health information. Recently, an emerging social media app TikTok has raised much research interest due to its popularity among general health consumers. We notice that there are many videos about diabetes in TikTok. However, it remains unclear whether those diabetes-related videos in TikTok are of satisfactory information quality.
Objective:
The paper aims to assess the information quality of diabetes-related videos in TikTok.
Methods:
We collected a sample of 199 diabetes-related videos in Chinese. The videos’ basic information was coded and analyzed. First, we identified the sources of each video. Next, two independent raters assessed the videos regarding the completeness of six facets of content (i.e., definition, symptoms, risk factors, evaluation, management, and outcomes). Then, the two raters independently assess the information quality of those videos by employing the DISCERN instrument.
Results:
Regarding video sources, we found seven distinct types of video uploaders, including three kinds of individual users (i.e., health professionals, general users, science communicators) and four types of organizational users (i.e., news agencies, public hospitals, non-profit organizations for-profit organizations). About video content, the results suggest that the TikTok videos are primarily about diabetes management while containing limited information on other content aspects, such as disease definition, symptoms, risk factors, evaluation, and outcomes. Concerning information quality, the results reveal that the overall quality of diabetes videos is averagely acceptable. The results also indicate the information quality varied depending on different video sources. The videos created by public hospitals are featured with the highest information quality, while the videos contributed by for-profit organizations are in the lowest information quality.
Conclusions:
Although overall information quality of diabetes videos in TikTok is acceptable, TikTok might not fully meet diabetes patients’ health information needs. Patients need to keep cautious of information sources when using TikTok for diabetes-related information.
Citation
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Copyright
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