Is Youtube a potential training source for total extraperitoneal laparoscopic inguinal hernia repair?

The aim of this study is to evaluate the quality of the most commonly viewed total extraperitoneal laparoscopic inguinal hernia repair (TEP) videos on Youtube, which is the largest social and medical media broadcasting service, concerning educational purposes.

A search with the keyword "total extraperitoneal laparoscopic inguinal hernia repair" was performed on Youtube. The first 120 videos among the search results were downloaded and 55 of them were included in the study. A scoring system developed by the authors according to the recent literature was utilized for evaluation of the videos. Video demographics were evaluated for the quality and upload source.

Among the enrolled videos, video quality was rated as good in 13 (23.6%), as moderate in 22 (40%), and as poor in 20 (36.4%). Video length, presence of narration, number of likes, and comments were significantly higher in the good group. Upload source was an academic center in 14 (25.5%), a community hospital in 22 (40.0%), and a physician in 19 (34.5%). The mean video score of the academic center group (8 ± 4.095) and community hospital group (8.64 ± 3.259) was significantly higher than the physician group (5.47 ± 2.632) (p = 0.010). Video quality was not correlated with total views or views per day.

Total extraperitoneal laparoscopic inguinal hernia repair procedure videos uploaded to Youtube demonstrate considerable heterogeneity in terms of educational quality and the number of good quality videos is significantly low. This heterogeneity is attributed to the lack of peer review process for the evaluation of educational quality of the videos. Therefore, a physician intending to learn and practice a surgical procedure properly (TEP repair in this situation) should not consider a broadcasting service without a peer review process as a reliable training source.