Abstract
BackgroundChronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) has become one of the most critical public health problems worldwide. Because many COPD patients are using video-based social media to search for health information, there is an urgent need to assess the information quality of COPD videos on social media. Recently, the short-video app TikTok has demonstrated huge potential in disseminating health information and there are currently many COPD videos available on TikTok; however, the information quality of these videos remains unknown.ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to investigate the information quality of COPD videos on TikTok.MethodsIn December 2020, we retrieved and screened 300 videos from TikTok and collected a sample of 199 COPD-related videos in Chinese for data extraction. We extracted the basic video information, coded the content, and identified the video sources. Two independent raters assessed the information quality of each video using the DISCERN instrument.ResultsCOPD videos on TikTok came mainly from two types of sources: individual users (n=168) and organizational users (n=31). The individual users included health professionals, individual science communicators, and general TikTok users, whereas the organizational users consisted of for-profit organizations, nonprofit organizations, and news agencies. For the 199 videos, the mean scores of the DISCERN items ranged from 3.42 to 4.46, with a total mean score of 3.75. Publication reliability (P=.04) and overall quality (P=.02) showed significant differences across the six types of sources, whereas the quality of treatment choices showed only a marginally significant difference (P=.053) across the different sources.ConclusionsThe overall information quality of COPD videos on TikTok is satisfactory, although the quality varies across different sources and according to specific quality dimensions. Patients should be selective and cautious when watching COPD videos on TikTok.
Highlights
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) has become one of the most critical public health problems, which has resulted in huge health care expenditures [1]
Most of the COPD TikTok videos in our sample were contributed by individual users (168/199, 84.4%), whereas a relatively small share was contributed by organizational users (31/199, 15.6%)
This study reveals that both individual users and organizational users are engaged in creating COPD videos on TikTok
Summary
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) has become one of the most critical public health problems, which has resulted in huge health care expenditures [1]. Limited access to information about COPD has become a significant problem for patients and their caregivers [9]. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) has become one of the most critical public health problems worldwide. Because many COPD patients are using video-based social media to search for health information, there is an urgent need to assess the information quality of COPD videos on social media. Results: COPD videos on TikTok came mainly from two types of sources: individual users (n=168) and organizational users (n=31). Conclusions: The overall information quality of COPD videos on TikTok is satisfactory, the quality varies across different sources and according to specific quality dimensions. Patients should be selective and cautious when watching COPD videos on TikTok
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