Does YouTube™ offer high quality information? Evaluation of accelerated orthodontics videos.

BACKGROUND: YouTube™ is the foremost source of videos of all kinds of issues.

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to investigate videos related to accelerated orthodontic treatment on YouTube™ in terms of characteristics, content, popularity and viewers' assessments.

METHODS: Six keywords related to accelerated orthodontic treatment were searched on YouTube™. After sorting by view-count, all 116 videos were evaluated, and the exclusion criteria were defined as: another language than English, unrelated to the topic, poor video quality and duplication. The remaining 80 videos were analyzed for general characteristics, primary purpose, information content, audio-visual quality. Also, viewers' interaction index, and viewing rate formulas were calculated for each video.

RESULTS: The final 80 videos were viewed by users for 177,328 times in total. Most videos were uploaded by an educational institution (n = 40; 50.0%), followed by orthodontists (n = 20; 25.0%). Most of the videos (51.25%) were classified as having excellent general information content, 30.00% were rated as moderate, and 18.75% were rated as poor. The videos generally involved educational content (47.50%), followed by product presentation (20.00%), and then technical details about accelerated orthodontics (11.25%). Only 6.25% of the videos (n = 5) had viewers' interaction index values of greater than 3.00. Videos with excellent content had significantly higher interaction index values than others (p < 0.001).

CONCLUSIONS: YouTube™ could be preferred as an important source for patient information about accelerated orthodontics. Reliable informative videos should be uploaded by orthodontists or dental professionals in accelerated orthodontics.