Quality Assessment of YouTube Content on SLAP Tears

ABSTRACT

Objectives

Superior labrum anterior posterior (SLAP) tears can cause shoulder pain, disability, instability, and humeral head translation. YouTube has become an increasingly popular source of medical information, but little is currently known in terms of quality control of the uploaded content. The purpose of this study was to assess the quality of YouTube videos related to the diagnosis and treatment of Superior Labrum Anterior Posterior (SLAP) tears.

Methods

YouTube was queried in August 2021 using the two predetermined keywords: ‘SLAP tear’ and ‘superior labral tear.’ The first 50 videos were analyzed by two independent reviewers and scored using 3 scoring systems: Global Quality Scale (GQS), the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), and the Shoulder-Specific Score (SSS) to determine video accuracy and reliability. Title, number of views, video duration, video source, content type, views/day, number of likes, number of dislikes, days since upload, like ratio (Like × 100/ [Like + Dislike]) and Video Power Index (VPI) (Like ratio × View ratio/100) were all recorded and analyzed.

Results

The scores of most videos were low, with a mean JAMA score of 2.5 (1–4, SD 0.73), a mean GQS of 2.66 (0.5–4.5, SD 0.99) and a mean SSS of 7.13 (0–18, SD 4.39). There were significantly higher mean scores for JAMA, GQS, and SSS in the academic and independent physician categories, with a mean JAMA score of 3.11, GQS score of 3.39, and SSS score of 11 for academic sources and a mean JAMA score of 2.83, GQS score of 3.23, and SSS score of 9.23 for independent physician sources. JAMA score was significantly and positively correlated with video duration (r = 0.405, p = 0.006). Views, likes, dislikes, publication dates, and VPI were not significantly correlated with any scoring scale.

Conclusion

YouTube videos on the diagnosis and management of SLAP tears have low overall quality and reliability scores. Independent physician and academic institution sources received higher mean scores for JAMA, GQS, and SSS. Video quality was not correlated with number of views.

KEYWORDS:

• SLAP tear
• YouTube
• shoulder
• quality assessment

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.