The role of youtube as an information source about coronary artery disease during COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Aim: There are videos on Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) and coronary artery disease at various quality levels on Youtube. To investigate the quality of Turkish language videos on Youtube about COVID-19 and coronary artery disease. Methods: The study was conducted between 1st and 3rd September 2020. Two doctors investigated keywords including coronary artery disease, COVID-19", “coronavirus, heart disease”, “coronavirus, chest pain”, “COVID-19, heartache” and “COVID-19, heart disease”. “Coronary artery disease”, “heartache”, “chest pain” and “heart disease” are the Turkish translations for coronary artery disease, heart pain, chest pain and heart disease, respectively. Firstly, for each video, video length, number of days on Youtube, and the number of views and comments were recorded, along with the number of “likes” and “dislikes”. Sources of the videos were categorized into three groups: “health care professionals”, “new agencies” and “non-professional individuals”. Moreover, DISCERN and medical information and content index (MICI) were evaluated. Results: Finally, 92 Youtube videos met the study inclusion criteria. The present study included 36 informative videos, 34 patient experience videos and 22 news update videos, and none were categorized in the misleading group. The shortest video length was found in patient experience videos (p=0.001). The DISCERN scores of videos were 3.5±1.1 for informative videos, 1.8±0.4 for patient experience videos and 0.9±1.3 for news update videos. The statistical analyses revealed that informative videos had significantly higher DISCERN scores when compared to patient experience videos and news update videos (p=0.005 and p=0.001, respectively). The mean MICI score was 4.1±1.5 for informative videos. Conclusion: The present study showed that videos about coronary artery disease and COVID-19 are generally poor quality and low reliability.