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Education and Misinformation: Exploring Ophthalmology Content on TikTok
Ritu Sampige1, Emily Grace Rodgers2, Austin Huang3
1Department of Ophthalmology, Baylor College of Medicine, 1 Baylor Plaza, Houston, TX, 77030, USA. ritu.sampige@bcm.edu.
Ophthalmology and Therapy
|October 24, 2023
Summary
Many TikTok ophthalmology videos lack accuracy, with misinformation prevalent in content from non-eyecare providers. Ophthalmologists should create more reliable educational content to counter false health information online.
Area of Science:
- Ophthalmology
- Digital Health
- Social Media Analysis
Background:
- Increasing patient reliance on social media for health information.
- TikTok's rapid growth as a platform for health content.
- Lack of comprehensive analysis on ophthalmology content quality on TikTok.
Purpose of the Study:
- To explore and characterize popular ophthalmology content on TikTok.
- To assess the quality and identify misinformation within this content.
- To analyze creator demographics and engagement metrics.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of 723 TikTok videos across 37 ophthalmology hashtags.
- Evaluation of educational content using the Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool for Audiovisual Materials (PEMAT-A/V).
- Assessment of creator identity, content type, engagement, and misinformation presence.
Main Results:
- Majority of content created by non-healthcare providers (55.0%).
- Misinformation found in 5.4% of videos, significantly linked to non-provider content.
- Educational videos had high understandability (88.1%) but low actionability (50.6%).
Conclusions:
- A substantial amount of popular TikTok ophthalmology content originates from non-eyecare professionals.
- Misinformation is a notable issue, disproportionately shared and bookmarked.
- Ophthalmologists are urged to produce more engaging, accurate, and actionable educational content.
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