Lingual orthodontic treatment: A YouTube™ video analysis

The aim of this study was to examine the quality of information offered for patients seeking information on lingual orthodontic treatment.

YouTube™ was searched for videos about lingual orthodontic treatment using the key word "lingual braces" from the Google Trends application. One hundred and four videos were selected to be analyzed from the first 120 results. The video content was evaluated using a 10-point score, which was used for classifying low- and high-content video groups. The video information and quality index (VIQI) was applied to determine the quality of the videos. The Mann-Whitney U-test, Chi-square test, and logistic regression analysis were used, and the Pearson correlation coefficient was calculated for statistical evaluations.

We classified 32 videos as high-content and 72 as low-content. Most videos were uploaded by laypeople (58.7%, n = 61). Definition of lingual braces and psychological impact were the most commonly discussed topics (51.0%), followed by speech performance (47.1%), pain (44.2%), tongue soreness (37.5%), and biomechanics (14.4%). Compared to the low-content group, the high-content video group had a significantly higher mean number of views (19,867.41 vs 6720.08, P = .002) and more "likes" (135.88 vs 13.01, P < .001), "dislikes" (4.34 vs 0.81, P < .001), and "comments" (26.28 vs 5.31, P = .002). There was no difference in the total VIQI score between the groups ( P = .009).

The content of YouTube™ videos for lingual orthodontics was generally incomplete. Most videos mentioned psychological effects, but few videos discussed the biomechanics or procedure. Orthodontists should be aware of the information available on YouTube™.