Systematic assessment of information about surgical urinary stone treatment on YouTube

To systematically assess the quality of videos on the surgical treatment of urinary stones available on YouTube using validated instruments.

A systematic search for videos on YouTube addressing treatment options of urinary stones was performed in October 2019. Assessed parameters included basic data (e.g. number of views), the grade of misinformation reporting of conflicts of interest. Quality of content was analyzed using the validated DISCERN questionnaire. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics.

A total of 100 videos with a median of 26,234 views (1020-1,720,521) were included in the analysis. Of these, only 26 videos were rated to contain no misinformation and only nine disclosed potential conflicts of interest. Overall, the median quality of the videos was low (2 out of 5 points for DISCERN question 16). Videos uploaded by healthcare professionals and medical societies/organizations offered significantly higher levels of quality. In particular, the videos provided by the EAU achieved the highest rating with a median score of 3.0.

The majority of videos concerning the surgical treatment of urinary stones have a low quality of content, are potentially subject to commercial bias and do not report on conflicts of interest. Videos provided by medical societies, such as the EAU, provide a higher level of quality. This highlights the importance of active recommendation of evidence-based patient education materials.