Assessment of freely available online videos of cardiac electrophysiological procedures from a shared decision-making...

Physicians recommend electrophysiological (EP) procedures to patients with arrhythmic risk. This involves shared decision-making (SDM). Patients increasingly search for additional information online. Freely available online videos are an attractive source.

We assessed freely available online videos for EP procedures from the perspective of SDM to determine if such videos can be shared with patients for SDM.

We searched for freely available online videos related to 6 common EP procedures limited to English language and duration between 1 and 10 minutes using Google and Bing. Data collected included date and source of upload, number of hits, and duration. Videos were assessed systematically for understandability, actionability (PEMAT tool), relatability, teamwork, and mention of risk.

A total of 78 videos met our inclusion criteria, out of 960 video links. Overall inter-rater agreement was moderate to good. Video upload dates spanned 12 years and number of hits ranged from 87 to 594,000. The majority of videos (63%) were produced by health care systems or academic institutions. For all 78 videos the mean total PEMAT tool score was 48.6%. Thirty-five percent of videos showed a patient engaged in a conversation with the physician or a team member; 41% of videos showed other team members. The potential for complications was mentioned in 10%.

The majority of online, freely available videos for common EP procedures lack features useful for SDM and may not be helpful for sharing with patients from that perspective. It is possible to create high-quality videos that can facilitate SDM.