Health Literacy and Web-Based Audiovisual Multimedia in Pituitary and Endoscopic Skull Base Surgery

Area of Science:

• Neurosurgery
• Medical Education
• Digital Health

Background:

• The internet offers abundant multimedia resources for pituitary and endoscopic skull base surgery (ESBS).
• Misinformation online can lead to discrepancies between patient expectations and provider recommendations.
• Evaluating the quality of online surgical information is crucial for patient understanding.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the understandability and actionability of audiovisual information on ESBS and pituitary surgery available on YouTube and Google.
• To identify factors influencing the quality of online surgical educational content.

Main Methods:

• A systematic search for "pituitary surgery/transsphenoidal surgery" and "endoscopic skull base surgery" videos on YouTube and Google.
• Evaluation of the top 50 videos from each platform using the Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool for audiovisual material (PEMAT-A/V).
• Analysis of video characteristics including source, authorship, audience, and educational versus advertisement content.

Main Results:

• 85 videos met inclusion criteria; no significant platform differences were found.
• Patient-targeted videos (72%) were more understandable but contained more advertisements.
• Surgeon-targeted (28%) and education-focused videos were more actionable.
• Understandability and actionability scores for both platforms fell below the 70% benchmark.

Conclusions:

• Audiovisual patient information on ESBS and pituitary surgery on YouTube and Google demonstrates poor understandability and actionability.
• There is a need for standardized, high-quality patient information resources for these surgical procedures.
• Improving online medical information quality is essential for informed patient decision-making.