Assessing the usefulness of educational videos on endodontic irrigation for dental students: a pilot study

This research aimed to assess the usefulness of existing YouTube videos on endodontic irrigation, published between January 2013 and December 2022, as a learning resource for dental undergraduate students. Additionally, the study evaluated the educational value of these videos about factors such as video duration, authorship source, and view count.

YouTube searches for videos related to endodontic irrigation were conducted using search terms such as "irrigation protocol" and "endodontic irrigation." After screening, ninety-six videos were selected and assessed based on factors such as days since upload, video duration, number of views and likes, authorship source, and viewing rate. A set of six parameters was established to evaluate the educational value of the videos, with each element being assigned a score of 0 or 1. Statistical analyses were performed using the Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney tests, with a significant level of 5%.

The videos received an average of 4,474.76 views, 38.67 likes, a 290.5% viewing rate, and a video length of 161.15 s. The mean usefulness score was 3.89, with the most discussed elements being demonstration, description, and equipment/apparatus. The majority of videos were from healthcare professionals (n = 73, 76.04%) or commercial sources (n = 22, 22.92%). Twenty-seven videos were classified as highly useful, sixty-one as moderately useful, and eight as low usefulness. Among the content usefulness categories, the highly useful videos had the shortest length (mean = 158.93s), while the moderately useful videos had the highest viewing rate. Videos uploaded by different authorship sources showed minimal statistical significance in content usefulness.

The usefulness of endodontic irrigation videos on YouTube has low educational value, and the available data to assess their effectiveness as a learning tool for undergraduate students is inconclusive.