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Is YouTube Propagating Concerns About Breast Implant Illness?
Isabel Herzog1, Meher Pandher, Priya A Mansukhani
1From the Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, Newark, NJ.
Annals of Plastic Surgery
|January 3, 2024
Summary
YouTube videos about breast implant illness (BII) often lack quality and reliability. Plastic surgeon-created content can improve accuracy for patients seeking health information.
Area of Science:
- Plastic Surgery
- Health Communication
- Digital Media Analysis
Background:
- Breast implant illness (BII) is a term for symptoms reported by patients with breast implants.
- YouTube is a widely used platform for plastic surgery patient education.
Purpose of the Study:
- Assess the quality and reliability of YouTube videos on BII.
- Compare video quality across different categories and publishers.
- Identify frequently reported BII symptoms in videos.
Main Methods:
- Searched YouTube for "breast implant illness" and collected the top 100 videos.
- Analyzed engagement metrics, reported symptoms, and used Video Power Index, DISCERN, and GQS for assessment.
- Included 90 videos meeting inclusion criteria for analysis.
Main Results:
- Over half of videos mentioned fatigue, cognitive dysfunction, or pain.
- Videos featuring plastic surgeons or categorized as educational had higher quality and reliability scores.
- Plastic surgeon-published videos outperformed non-medical publishers in all metrics.
Conclusions:
- Top YouTube videos on BII generally exhibit low reliability and moderate quality.
- Patients may be exposed to misinformation due to limited quality control on health videos.
- Increased creation of social media content by plastic surgeons can enhance video quality and accuracy.
