The usefulness of YouTube™ videos as a source of information on burning mouth syndrome

The aim of this review was to investigate quality assessment and quantitative information on burning mouth syndrome (BMS) on YouTube™ videos.

An electronic search of YouTube™ videos on BMS was performed using subject headings, keywords and synonyms of BMS. For each video, quality information, via the quality assessment score (QAS) and quantitative information, such as the total number of results per term searched, date of upload, clip length, view count, source category (professional, personal, educational, mixed), number of likes and dislikes and YouTube™ category were evaluated.

The search identified 3768 videos of which only 114 were included in our analysis: the quality of videos was very poor (mean ± standard deviation = 1.76 ± 1.64). The most representative categories were "educational" with 53 (46.5%) videos scoring between 0 and 4 and "mixed" with 24 (21.1%) videos scoring between 0 and 2. Significant differences were found among all four categories in relation to length in seconds (P < 0.001), number of views (P = 0.006) and interaction index (P = 0.001), as well as between "professional" and the other categories and between "educational" and "personal" in relation to length in seconds (P < 0.001), between "educational" and "personal" (P < 0.001) and "personal" and "mixed" category in relation to interaction index (P = 0.003) and between "professional" and "personal" in relation to views per day (P = 0.015).

A large number of videos regarding BMS have published on YouTube™, with a wide range of distribution regarding their length and views. Unfortunately, they presented unreliable information which is most often scientifically inaccurate. Health care institutions and professionals should be more actively involved in improving high-quality e-information about BMS on YouTube™.