Quality of information in Youtube videos on disorder of sexual development

Abstract

The aim of this study was to evaluate the accuracy and quality of the videos published on YouTube on the subject of disorder of sexual development. The search was performed by using term ‘disorder of sexual development’, ‘differences in sex development’, ‘variations in sex development’ and ‘intersex’ on YouTube. Videos in languages other than English and whose sound or image quality was poor were excluded from the study. The videos were evaluated in terms of source, content, intended audience, commercial bias, and accuracy of information. Video features were recorded. Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) criteria, modified DISCERN scale and Global Quality Score (GQS) were used for quality evaluation. A total of 150 videos were evaluated. The source of 30% of the videos was medical education sites, the content of 43.3% was general information and the target audience of 40.6% was patients/society. Accuracy of information rate was 90% and commercial bias rate was 7.3%. The median JAMA, GQS and Modified DISCERN score were 1 (IQR value:2, range:0–2), 3 (IQR value:2, range:2–4) and 3 (IQR value:2, range:1–3) respectively. These scores were correlated with each other (rho = 0.834–0.909 p < 0.001). Scores of the videos whose source was academic journal/university were higher compared to other videos (p < 0.001). The median duration of the videos with good quality was longer (p < 0.001). A negative correlation was found between all scoring systems and number of views/likes/comments, view/comment per day and days since upload date (rho = −0.332, rho = −0.273, rho = −0.382, rho = −0.249, rho = −0.323 rho = −0.285 respectively; p < 0.05). YouTube is a good platform to learn about disorder of sexual development, but the quality may vary depending on the video source.