JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Brain death has been used to decide whether to keep sustained care and treatment, and it can facilitate tissue, organ, and body donation for several purposes, such as transplantation and medical education and research. In the case of Japan, brain death counts with a strict diagnosis criterion and family consent is crucial, but it has been a challenging concept for the public since its introduction, including knowledge and communication issues.

Objective:

We analysed data across Japanese YouTube and Twitter to uncover actors and quality of brain death communication, providing recommendations to communicate new medical technologies.

Methods:

Using the keyword “脳死”(brain death), we collected recent data from YouTube and Twitter, classifying it into five dimensions: time, individuality (type of users), place, activity, and relations (hyperlinks). We employed a scale to evaluate brain death information quality and divided YouTube videos in three groups and assessed their differences through statistical analysis. We also provided a text-based analysis of brain death-related narratives.

Results:

Most videos (20/61, 32.78%) were uploaded in 2019, while 10,892 Tweets peaked between July 3 and 9, and June 12 and 18 of 2023. Citizens uploaded most (18, 27.27%) videos about brain death, followed by media (13, 19.69%) and unknown actors (10, 15.15%), whereas most identified users in a random sample of 100 Tweets were citizens (73%) and top 10 retweeted and liked Tweets were also mostly authored by citizens (75%). There was a significant difference in unknown locations (F(1.22, 5.72) = [6.20], p = .002), suggesting that information quality in such places was high in YouTube, whereas no specific information on locations was uncovered in Twitter. Information videos contained guides for accreditation of the National Nursing Exam and religious points of view, while Misinformation videos mostly contained promotions by spirituality actors and webtoon artists, and some Tweets versed on heart transplantation and patient narratives. Most hyperlinks pointed to YouTube and Twitter.

Conclusions:

Brain death has become a common topic in everyday life, with some actors disseminating high-quality information, others no medical information, and others misinformation. Recommendations include partnering with interested actors, discussing medical information in detail, and teaching people to recognize pseudoscience.