Skip to main content

Advertisement

Log in

A qualitative analysis of methotrexate self-injection education videos on YouTube

  • Brief Report
  • Published:
Clinical Rheumatology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The aim of this study is to identify and evaluate the quality of videos for patients available on YouTube for learning to self-administer subcutaneous methotrexate. Using the search term “Methotrexate injection,” two clinical reviewers analyzed the first 60 videos on YouTube. Source and search rank of video, audience interaction, video duration, and time since video was uploaded on YouTube were recorded. Videos were classified as useful, misleading, or a personal patient view. Videos were rated for reliability, comprehensiveness, and global quality scale (GQS). Reasons for misleading videos were documented, and patient videos were documented as being either positive or negative towards methotrexate (MTX) injection. Fifty-one English videos overlapped between the two geographic locations; 10 videos were classified as useful (19.6 %), 14 misleading (27.5 %), and 27 personal patient view (52.9 %). Total views of videos were 161,028: 19.2 % useful, 72.8 % patient, and 8.0 % misleading. Mean GQS: 4.2 (±1.0) useful, 1.6 (±1.1) misleading, and 2.0 (±0.9) for patient videos (p < 0.0001). Mean reliability: 3.3 (±0.6) useful, 0.9 (±1.2) misleading, and 1.0 (±0.7) for patient videos (p < 0.0001). Comprehensiveness: 2.2 (±1.9) useful, 0.1 (±0.3) misleading, and 1.5 (±1.5) for patient view videos (p = 0.0027). This study demonstrates a minority of videos are useful for teaching MTX injection. Further, video quality does not correlate with video views. While web video may be an additional educational tool available, clinicians need to be familiar with specific resources to help guide and educate their patients to ensure best outcomes.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Chan ESL, Cronstein BN (2010) Methotrexate—how does it really work? Nat Rev Rheumatol 6(3):175–178

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Swierkot J, Szechiński J (2006) Methotrexate in rheumatoid arthritis. Pharmacol Rep 58(4):473–492

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Freeman-Narrod M, Gerstley B, Engstrom P, Bornstein R (1975) Comparison of serum concentrations of methotrexate after various routes of administration. Cancer 36(5):1619–1624

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Wegrzyn J, Adeleine P, Miossec P (2004) Better efficacy of methotrexate given by intramuscular injection than orally in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Ann Rheum Dis 63(10):1232–1234

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  5. Braun J, Kästner P, Flaxenberg P et al (2008) Comparison of the clinical efficacy and safety of subcutaneous versus oral administration of methotrexate in patients with active rheumatoid arthritis: results of a 6-month, multicenter, randomized, double-blind, controlled, phase IV trial. Arthritis Rheum 58(1):73–81

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. Feitosa ACR, Sampaio LN, Batista AGL, Pinheiro CB (2013) Frequency of fear of needles and impact of a multidisciplinary educational approach towards pregnant women with diabetes. Rev Bras Ginecol Obstet 35(3):111–116

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  7. Yazici Y, Bata Y (2013) Parenteral methotrexate for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. Bull Hosp Jt Dis 71(Suppl 1):46–48

    Google Scholar 

  8. Fox S, Duggan M (2013) Health Online 2013:1–55

    Google Scholar 

  9. YouTube. Statistics. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/yt/press/statistics.html. Accessed July 13, 2014

  10. Jansen BJ, Spink A (2003) An analysis of web documents retrieved and viewed. 4th Int. Conf. Internet Comput: 65–69

  11. Singh AG, Singh S, Singh PP (2012) YouTube for information on rheumatoid arthritis—a wakeup call? J Rheumatol 39(5):899–903

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  12. Charnock D, Shepperd S, Needham G, Gann R (1999) DISCERN: an instrument for judging the quality of written consumer health information on treatment choices. J Epidemiol Community Health 53(2):105–111

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  13. Bernard A, Langille M, Hughes S, Rose C, Leddin D, Veldhuyzen van Zanten S (2007) A systematic review of patient inflammatory bowel disease information resources on the World Wide Web. Am J Gastroenterol 102(9):2070–2077

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  14. McMullan M (2006) Patients using the Internet to obtain health information: how this affects the patient-health professional relationship. Patient Educ Couns 63(1–2):24–28

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  15. Underhill C, Mckeown L (2008) Getting a second opinion: health information and the internet. Health Rep 19(1):65–69

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  16. Dubey D, Amritphale A, Sawhney A, Dubey D, Srivastav N (2014) Analysis of YouTube as a source of information for West Nile virus infection. Clin Med Res

  17. Chen HM, Hu ZK, Zheng XL et al (2013) Effectiveness of YouTube as a source of medical information on heart transplantation. Interact J Med Res 2(2):1–15

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  18. Fox S (2006) Online Health Search 2006: most internet users start at a search engine when looking for health information online. Very few check the source and date of the findings. Paw Internet Am Life Proj 2006:1–22

    Google Scholar 

  19. Katz SJ, Leung S (2014) Teaching methotrexate self-injection with a web-based video maintains patient care while reducing healthcare resources: a pilot study. Rheumatol Int.

Download references

Conflict of interest

The authors declare they have no conflicts of interest.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Steven J. Katz.

Additional information

This manuscript does not contain clinical studies or patient data.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Rittberg, R., Dissanayake, T. & Katz, S.J. A qualitative analysis of methotrexate self-injection education videos on YouTube. Clin Rheumatol 35, 1329–1333 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10067-015-2910-5

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10067-015-2910-5

Keywords

Navigation