Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Dermatology
Date Submitted: Sep 16, 2022
Open Peer Review Period: Sep 16, 2022 - Nov 11, 2022
Date Accepted: Oct 16, 2022
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Viewer Discretion Advised: A cross-sectional analysis of YouTube videos pertaining to tattoo removals
ABSTRACT
Background:
The American Academy of Dermatology and Food and Drug Administration recommend consultation with a dermatologist prior to undergoing laser tattoo removal. However, non-healthcare professionals offer tattoo removals. Understanding the information available on the Internet for patients regarding tattoo removal is important given that individuals are increasingly consulting digital sources to make decisions regarding skin care. Prior research has identified that YouTube contains misinformation on dermatologic health.
Objective:
Here, we present a cross-sectional study that determines that sources of information in YouTube videos that discuss tattoo removals and describe the content presented to viewers
Methods:
Using the query “tattoo removal”, we reviewed English-language YouTube videos that explicitly discussed tattoo removals.
Results:
We analyzed 162 YouTube videos and show that majority are presented by non-healthcare professionals (77%), with only 4 records of this subset recommending viewers to seek consultation from a dermatologist to ensure safe and adequate tattoo removals.
Conclusions:
Based on our findings, we recommend dermatologists and other healthcare professionals to provide high-quality, evidence-based information to viewers regarding tattoo removals. Clinical Trial: N/A
Citation
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Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.