YouTube as a source of information on COVID-19 and rheumatic disease link

Introduction/objectives: The current 2019 novel coronavirus outbreak is continuing to spread rapidly despite all efforts. Patients with rheumatic disease may have higher levels of anxiety due to their disease characteristics and medications. The web-based platforms are widely used sources for gaining medical information. YouTube presents a wide range of medical information, but there are concerns on its quality. Therefore, we aimed to evaluate the quality of the YouTube videos about COVID-19 and rheumatic diseases link.

Method: This is a descriptive study. A total of 360 videos listed by the YouTube search engine (www.youtube.com) in response to six search terms were evaluated. The Global Quality Scale (GQS) was performed to evaluate video quality. Three groups were formed according to GQS scores: high quality, moderate quality, and low quality. Video parameters were compared between these groups.

Results: After the exclusion criteria, 46 videos were reviewed. Of the videos, 41.4% (n = 19) were of high-quality group, 21.7% (n = 10) were moderate-quality group, and 36.9% (n = 17) were of low-quality group. Significant difference was detected between the quality groups in terms of views per day (p = 0.004). No significant difference was detected in comments per day (p = 0.139) and like ratio (p = 0.232).

Conclusions: Besides high-quality videos, there were substantially low-quality videos that could cause misleading information to spread rapidly during the pandemic. Videos from trustworthy sources such as universities, academics, and physicians should be kept in the foreground.Key Points•Web-based platforms have become an important source of health-related information. One of the most important online sources is YouTube because it is easy accessible and free.•Of the videos evaluating the link between COVID-19 and rheumatic diseases, 41.4% (n = 19) were of high quality.•The main sources of high-quality videos were academics/universities and physicians.•The most frequently discussed topics in videos were the place of hydroxychloroquine in the treatment of COVID-19 and whether to continue the use of existing rheumatological drugs.