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Assessment of Lung Cancer YouTube Videos for Patient Education

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Abstract

The internet is essential for obtaining information about lung cancer, which is the leading contributor to global cancer deaths. YouTube is a video-streaming platform that is popular among health consumers; however, the reliability of videos is variable, and few studies have evaluated their role in lung cancer education. This study uses a systematic approach to assess the characteristics, reliability and use of best practices of lung cancer YouTube videos for patient education. Using the search term “lung cancer,” the first 50 YouTube videos were identified after applying exclusion criteria and removing duplicates. Two reviewers used a video assessment tool to evaluate 10 videos with minimal discrepancies. The remaining 40 videos were evaluated by one reviewer following a design based research approach. Under half the videos were published within 3 years. Mean video length was 6 min and 12 s. Video publishers were commonly from the USA (70%); were affiliated with a health care facility/ organization (30%), non-profit (26%) or commercial organization (30%); had a physician presenter (46%); were targeted towards patients (68%); and had subtitles (96%). Seventy four percent of videos supported optimal learning by including effective audio and visual channels. Lung cancer epidemiology, risk factors, and definitions (nature of the disease and classification) were among the most common topics covered. Prognostic and diagnostic information was covered less than expected. The reliability of the videos (measured by Modified DISCERN score) varied by presenter type; however, these results should be interpreted cautiously due to the absence of gold standard tools. This study encourages those producing health education videos to continue following best practices for video learning and provides strategies for healthcare providers and patients to support patient education.

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Data Availability

The study used publicly available data from the video-sharing platform YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/.

Funding

This work was supported by the Faculty of Medicine Summer Student Research Program at the University of British Columbia.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

    Brandon S. Chai

  2. Department of Surgery, Division of Radiation Oncology, University of British Columbia, Faculty of Medicine, Vancouver, Canada

    Paris-Ann Ingledew

  3. Department of Radiation Oncology, BC Cancer-Vancouver, Vancouver, Canada

    Paris-Ann Ingledew

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  1. Brandon S. Chai
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Correspondence to Paris-Ann Ingledew.

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Chai, B.S., Ingledew, PA. Assessment of Lung Cancer YouTube Videos for Patient Education. J Canc Educ 38, 1760–1766 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13187-023-02332-6

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