Who is providing dental education content via YouTube?

Introduction Online video sharing platforms are regularly visited by dental students. However, they may be accessing non-peer-reviewed content which is not officially recommended by their dental school's curriculum. Aims To evaluate the reliability of dental education content found on YouTube. Methods A YouTube search for dental procedures content was conducted using the keywords 'restorative dentistry', 'paediatric dentistry', 'orthodontics' and 'oral surgery'. The first ten results of each search were set according to its publisher. The number of views, length, category, retention index and date of publication were analysed. Results Around 70% of the videos were published under education/science categories. These 40 videos received 25 million visitors and showed an average length of 9.22 min (+/- 8.19). Universities provided only 5% of the content. Older videos had more views per month (p < 0.05) and a better interaction index (p > 0.05). Most users preferred the long videos (p < 0.05) and the interaction index was better for those older videos (p < 0.01). Short videos had 70% user retention, while tenminute-long videos had 21%. Conclusions Most of the content found did not match the reliability criteria. Universities should consider how their students use YouTube and look to incorporate their findings into their curriculum. Content length and more recent dental videos will influence student retention and learning.