YouTube as a source of information on coccydynia

Abstract

In recent years, the use of YouTube for obtaining medical information has increased. In this article, we aimed to determine the usefulness, quality,and reliability of YouTube videos on coccydynia. Coccydynia and "coccyx pain" were searched for on YouTube on October 2, 2022. The study comprised 80 of the 120 videos that were discovered as a consequence of the search and met the inclusion criteria. The videos' videometric properties were noted. Depending on whether the content utilized information from evidence-based scientific sources,the videos were separated into two groups: useful and misleading. The measure popularity, the Video Power Index (VPI) was applied. To measure reliability, the modified DISCERN (mDISCERN) was applied. To evaluate quality, the Global Quality Score (GQS) was applied. This study found that 28.7% of the video sources were from physicians and 73.8% of the videos were classified as useful, while 26.2% were classified as misleading. Videos posted by doctors and academic institutions/professional organizations were all in the useful group, while all videos uploaded by independent users and patients were in the misleading group. The useful videos had higher VPI, GQS, and mDISCERN scores, indicating that videos posted by healthcare professionals and academic institutions were more reliable and of higher quality than those from patients and independent users. The significant number of the coccydynia-related YouTube videos were reliable, useful, and of high quality. Healthcare providers should be aware of the value of YouTube's health-related content and maintain high-quality content.