Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Nowadays, social media has become a valuable source of health-related information which can have an important impact on people’s behaviors and decisions regarding their diseases. To improve management of diabetes, patients often seek health information in social media platforms, including Youtube. We aim in this review to analyse factors associated with the popularity of videos found on YouTube that adress diabetes management.

Methods: A YouTube query using the search terms “diabetes treatment” in arab language was performed at the date of January 17th 2023. The most viewed 50 videos which first appeared in the search results were included in the analysis. The reliability of the videos was determined using the modified DISCERN criteria, and the quality with the Global Quality Score. Visual quality was also assessed. Popularity was determined by views number, likes and comments.

Results: The video quality was assessed by the Global Quality Standard and the mean score was 1.78 ±0.61. The reliability of the videos was determined using the modified DISCERN criteria was at 0.86±0.64. Popularity didn’t correlate neither with quality nor reliability. Graphic and audio quality didn’t correlate with popularity. Average likes numbers was 48153 for videos sharing incorrect and misleading informations, and 14560 for those with only correct content (P= 0.0001). Average commentes number was 1597 for videos sharing incorrect content, and 843 for those containing correct informations (P=0.04). The percentage of videos containing false and misleading informations was 63% of the total.

Conclusion: The most popular videos often content unreliable, incorrect, even dangerous content. This may have harmful consequences for the diabetes community. More studies are needed to analyse the reasons explaining this paradoxical phenomenon.