Reliability and Quality of YouTube Videos about Breast Cancer Uploaded During COVID-19 Pandemic

Burcin Agridag Ucpinar, Cennet Sahin and Muzaffer Basak

Department of Radiology, University of Health Sciences, Istanbul Sisli Hamidiye Etfal Training and Research Hospital, Turkey

^*Correspondance to: Burcin Agridag Ucpinar 

 PDF  Full Text Research Article | Open Access

Abstract:

Objective: During the era of COVID-19 pandemic, breast cancer patients inevitably seek information about the course of their disease, while they have limited access to hospitals. Online platforms, especially YouTube, have been a very rich source of information for patients. We aimed to evaluate the videos in YouTube related with breast cancer and COVID-19 released during the first 6 months of the pandemic and to determine their reliability and quality for patients and healthcare providers in circumstances of the pandemic. Methods: A YouTube search was performed by using search terms ‘breast cancer, COVID-19’, ‘breast cancer, Corona’ and ‘breast cancer, pandemic’. Videos in English language were evaluated for inclusion. Duplicated videos were not included. A playlist containing 142 videos was created. Videos were categorized according to their content (informative, patient experience, news), source of upload and their target audience. Video characteristics (number of views, duration, likes, dislikes, comments) were noted. Reliability and quality of videos were assessed by validated tools (DISCERN, VIQI scores, respectively). Results: Informative videos had significantly higher DISCERN scores when compared with patient experience and news videos. News videos had significantly higher scores in ‘flow of information’ parameters, when compared with other subgroups. Informative videos had significantly higher and patient experience videos had significantly lower information accuracy scores when compared with other groups. Conclusion: YouTube is a very rich source of medical information for breast cancer patients during the lockdown. Even though there are useful videos for patients, many unreliable videos are uploaded by non-professional individuals, as well.

Keywords:

Breast cancer; COVID-19; Health services

Cite the Article:

Ucpinar BA, Sahin C, Basak M. Reliability and Quality of YouTube Videos about Breast Cancer Uploaded During COVID-19 Pandemic. Ann Clin Case Rep. 2021; 6: 1966..