Evaluating YouTube as a Resource for Trigeminal Neuralgia Patient Education

Abstract

The objective of this study was to examine the educational value of YouTube as a source of patient information regarding trigeminal neuralgia and its treatment. We also sought to determine the degree of bias that is present in the top videos regarding this condition. We selected 6 search terms related to trigeminal neuralgia to examine on YouTube for quality and bias using the DISCERN criteria. Filtering by relevance and total view count, we determined the top 20 results for each search term and evaluated all videos for overall educational quality and creator bias. We categorized the type of content creator and compared overall DISCERN scores and bias scores between creator type and search term. There were 80 unique and 40 duplicate videos. There were 10,745,574 total views across all videos, with an average view count of 89,546. The mean DISCERN score for all videos was 1.7, and the mean bias score was 2.2. Based on individual search terms, the highest mean DISCERN score was for trigeminal neuralgia surgery (2.1) and the highest mean bias score was for tic douloureux (2.8). Among creator types, medical professionals had significantly higher overall (2.2) and bias (2.6) scores. Overall, YouTube is a relatively poor source of unbiased information about trigeminal neuralgia. Among the existing content, medical professionals provide educational material that is the highest quality and the most unbiased.