Youtube as a Source of Information on Sexual Dysfunction, Neurogenic bladder and Neurogenic bowel after Spinal Cord Injury

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a serious medical condition which can lead to many complications, resulting in significant disability and morbidity in individuals. YouTube is one of the largest online platforms and also a potential source of information for patients. We aimed to analyze Youtube videos in terms of the reliability and quality levels on sexual dysfunction (SD), “neurogenic bladder (NBL)” and “neurogenic bowel (NBW)” in this study. YouTube search was performed on April 24th, 2022, about SCI and sexual dysfunction, neurogenic bladder and neurogenic bowel. DISCERN and Global Quality Score (GQS) were used to evaluate the quality and reliability of the videos. The characteristics of each video such as the number of likes and views, upload date, duration, popularity index were recorded. A total of 50 videos were analyzed. When the videos were evaluated according to their DISCERN scores, they were mostly categorized as “poor” quality and they were classified as medium-low quality due to their GQS scores. The rate of videos based on “patient experience” was 40%. The quality of the videos about “Sexual dysfunction” was significantly higher than the videos about “neurogenic bladder” and “neurogenic bowel”. Neurogenic bowel videos were mostly uploaded by non-professional sources and had the lowest DISCERN scores. Most of the Youtube videos about sexual dysfunction, neurogenic bladder and neurogenic bowel after spinal cord injury, are helpful but low-to-medium quality videos. Although the videos included some basic topics, they did not provide enough information and were “limited use” videos for patients’ use.