Social Media Videos on Contraceptive Implants: An Assessment of Video Quality and Reliability.

STUDY OBJECTIVE: There are many videos on contraception on YouTube and TikTok, and women around the world use video platforms extensively to seek health information from videos of uncertain reliability and quality. The main objective of this research is to evaluate the scientific reliability and quality of the most popular social media videos about contraceptive subdermal implants.

METHODS: TikTok and YouTube videos were assessed separately by two gynaecologists. The video quality was evaluated according to the DISCERN score, Modified Discern Score, and Global Quality Score.

RESULTS: The study included the 100 most popular videos, 44 of which were uploaded by healthcare professionals. The median DISCERN score for videos shared by healthcare professionals was 50 (range: 15-75), while it was 22 (range: 15-56) for videos shared by independent users (p 0.001). The median modified DISCERN score was 4 (min-max: 0-5) and the median GQS score was 4 (min-max: 1-5) for the videos uploaded by healthcare professionals. The modified DISCERN and GQS scores of TikTok videos are lower than those of YouTube videos (p 0.001 and p 0.001, respectively).

CONCLUSION: Social media videos about contraceptive subdermal implants are popular and have been viewed tens of thousands of times, but the overall medical validity which we evaluated according to the scoring systems was poor. Despite the large number of videos, the content's quality and reliability are quite limited. There is a need to prioritize the education provided to patients by gynecologists, as well as to create high-quality content for YouTube and other similar platforms.