YouTube as a platform to better understand the treatment of lymphoma using ibrutinib: a cross-sectional study

Ibrutinib, one Food and Drug Administration-approved, orally available, small-molecule Bruton tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor, is an effective targeted therapy for patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and mantle cell lymphoma (MCL). YouTube is increasingly used for health purposes. However, videos for ibrutinib on YouTube have not been previously evaluated. This study assessed the accuracy and quality of YouTube videos on ibrutinib, to better understand the information shown on a dominant media platform.

The first 150 video results returned by the YouTube search engine in response to the keyword "ibrutinib" were included (up to June 27, 2022). Typically used predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied to screen the videos based on our needs. A 5-point Global Quality Scale (GQS) determined whether the videos would be useful to patients or not, and the quality of content was analyzed by five content-specific items. The quality of the included videos was classified as "low", "moderate", or "excellent" according to GQS and content score. The median and interquartile range were used to describe the values and Kruskal-Wallis test were used in the analysis.

A total of 99 videos with a median of 237 views met the inclusion criteria. The videos were categorized into educational videos (n=6, 6.07%), personal experience and blog (n=3, 3.03%) and interviews videos (n=90, 90.9%). Almost half of the videos were classified as moderate (n=51, 51.51%), followed by excellent (n=25, 25.26%) and low (n=23, 23.23%). Between the groups, no statistically significant differences were observed in the numbers of dislikes, comments, posted days, percentage positivity and viewing rate (P>0.05). There were marked differences in the length, likes, views, viewers' interaction and likeability (P<0.05).

YouTube could be an effective source for different groups of people to obtain helpful information about ibrutinib. The physicians, pharmacists, nurses and healthcare organizations should prepare and upload more comprehensible and reliable videos with evidence-based information.