DENTAL MISCONCEPTIONS IN SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS: YOUTUBE AND INSTAGRAM APPLICATIONS AMONG FLUORIDE TOXICITY, BLEACHING AND, WATERJET

To investigate the percentage of dental misconceptions in SM taking into considerations the most-trendy subjects. And evaluating the data validation and prove it by Evidence-Based Dentistry. We used two SM applications "YouTube and Instagram - as they have several advantages over other applications. We explored various posts by entering different hashtags related to dentistry. Posts with incorrect information and present frequently were selected, ending up with three topics "fluoride toxicity, bleaching, and water-jet . Then we searched about each topic with different hashtags. Posts with wrong information were picked and sorted according to the highest no. of views and likes. Ending the process with six posts for each subject. Presenter profession, type of post, and content validity were checked for each post. Analysis results showed 100% misconception among fluoride, 50% in bleaching and 33.33% related to water jet. Presenters may play a role in this as the findings showed participation by the laymen were doubled than dental professional, and the chance of them delivering right information was 27.3%. When it comes to the validity of information posted, 61.1% off the data in the three subjects were wrong. And according to the likes with 0our cut-off point 100, 61.1% of data posted lead to misconception among population. High percentage of misconceptions was found regardless the small sample size. And this is a real issue as nowadays SM shapes people lifestyle, and patients find it easy to seek information related to their health condition through SM.