An Analysis of YouTube Videos as Educational Resources for Patients About Refractive Surgery

Purpose: The aim of the study was to assess the quality of videos on YouTube as educational resources about refractive surgery. Methods: This is a retrospective, cross-sectional, register-based study. A search of YouTube was performed for the term "refractive surgery" without any changes to the Web site's standard search preferences. The first 160 videos were recorded. Additional videos from the search engine were also searched for the other common terms "LASIK," "PRK," and "laser eye surgery." The first 50 videos for each additional term were evaluated. A total of 310 videos were evaluated regarding DISCERN score (min-max: 16-75), Journal of the American Medical Association score (min-max: 0-4), and Global Quality score (min-max: 0-5). Results: Once 135 videos that did not meet the inclusion criteria were excluded from the sample, the remaining 175 videos were analyzed. The mean DISCERN, Journal of the American Medical Association, and Global Quality scores were 33.25 +/- 15.34 (poor quality), 0.74 +/- 0.82 (lowest quality), and 1.74 +/- 0.81 (poor quality), respectively. Of the 175 videos, 77 (42%) had been uploaded by physicians, 67 (38.2%) by health channels, 16 (9.1%) by patients, and another 15 (8.5%) by medical organizations. Conclusions: Although some of the analyzed online videos contain beneficial information, YouTube videos do not generally seem to be useful as educational resources for patients about refractive surgery. Nevertheless, health care professionals should continue to assess the reliability and usefulness of medical information provided by online resources from the viewpoint of patients.