A Content Analysis of YouTube TM Videos Related to Prostate Cancer.

In the United States, prostate cancer is the most common type of cancer in men after skin cancer. There is a paucity of research devoted to the types of prostate cancer information available on social media outlets. YouTubeTM is a widely used video sharing website, which is emerging as commonplace for information related to health. The purpose of this study was to describe the most widely viewed YouTubeTM videos related to prostate cancer. The 100 videos were watched a total of 50,278,770 times. The majority of videos were uploaded by consumers (45.0%) and medical or government professionals (30%). The purpose of most videos (78.0%) was to provide information, followed by discussions of prostate cancer treatment (51%) and prostate-specific antigen testing and routine screening (26%). All videos uploaded by medical and government professionals and 93.8% of videos uploaded by news sources provided information compared with about two thirds of consumer and less than one half of commercial and advertisement videos (p < .001). As society becomes increasingly technology-based, there is a need to help consumers acquire knowledge and skills to identify credible information to help inform their decisions.