Evaluation of the Liver Disease Information in Baidu Encyclopedia and Wikipedia: Longitudinal Study

Video quality of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease on TikTok: A cross-sectional study

The short-video application TikTok shows great potential for disseminating health information. We assessed the content, sources, and quality of information in videos related to nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) on TikTok. Our study aims to identify upload sources, content, and characteristic information for NAFLD videos on TikTok and further evaluate factors related to video quality. We investigated the top 100 videos related to NAFLD on TikTok and analyzed the upload sources, content, and characteristics of these videos. Evaluate video quality using the DISCERN tool and Global Quality Score (GQS). In addition, the correlation between video quality and video characteristics is further studied. In terms of video sources, the majority of NAFLD videos on TikTok (85/100, 85%) were posted by doctors, ensuring the professionalism of the content, and among the video content, disease knowledge was the most dominant video content, accounting for 57% (57/100) of all videos, and the average DISCERN and GQS scores of all 100 videos were 39.59 (SD 3.31) and 2.99 (SD 0.95), respectively. DISCERN and GQS data show that videos related to NAFLD do not have high-quality scores on TikTok, mainly fair (68/100, 68%) and moderate (49/100, 49%). In general, the quality of NAFLD video information from professional content and professional sources was higher than that of nonprofessional sources and nonprofessional content, the video quality of general surgeons was better than that of other department physicians, and the video quality of junior physicians was better than that of senior physicians. In terms of video correlation, durations, the number of fans, and the total number of works were negatively correlated with DISCERN scores (R < 0, P < .05), while likes, comments, collections, shares, and days since upload were not significantly correlated with DISCERN and GQS scores (P > .05). The medical information on TikTok is not rigorous enough to guide patients to make accurate judgments, platforms should monitor and guide publishers to help promote and disseminate quality content.

Public Awareness of the Fencing Response as an Indicator of Traumatic Brain Injury: Quantitative Study of Twitter and Wikipedia Data

BACKGROUND

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a disruption in normal brain function caused by an impact of external forces on the head. TBI affects millions of individuals per year, many potentially experiencing chronic symptoms and long-term disability, creating a public health crisis and an economic burden on society. The public discourse around sport-related TBIs has increased in recent decades; however, recognition of a possible TBI remains a challenge. The fencing response is an immediate posturing of the limbs, which can occur in individuals who sustain a TBI and can be used as an overt indicator of TBI. Typically, an individual demonstrating the fencing response exhibits extension in 1 arm and flexion in the contralateral arm immediately upon impact to the head; variations of forearm posturing among each limb have been observed. The tonic posturing is retained for several seconds, sufficient for observation and recognition of a TBI. Since the publication of the original peer-reviewed article on the fencing response, there have been efforts to raise awareness of the fencing response as a visible sign of TBI through publicly available web-based platforms, such as Twitter and Wikipedia.

OBJECTIVE

We aimed to quantify trends that demonstrate levels of public discussion and awareness of the fencing response over time using data from Twitter and Wikipedia.

METHODS

Raw Twitter data from January 1, 2010, to December 31, 2019, were accessed using the RStudio package academictwitteR and queried for the text "fencing response." Data for page views of the Fencing Response Wikipedia article from January 1, 2010, to December 31, 2019, were accessed using the RStudio packages wikipediatrend and pageviews. Data were clustered by weekday, month, half-year (to represent the American football season vs off-season), and year to identify trends over time. Seasonal regression analysis was used to analyze the relationship between the number of fencing response tweets and page views and month of the year.

RESULTS

Twitter mentions of the fencing response and Wikipedia page views increased overall from 2010 to 2019, with hundreds of tweets and hundreds of thousands of Wikipedia page views per year. Twitter mentions peaked during the American football season, especially on and following game days. Wikipedia page views did not demonstrate a clear weekday or seasonal pattern, but instead had multiple peaks across various months and years, with January having more page views than May.

CONCLUSIONS

Here, we demonstrated increased awareness of the fencing response over time using public data from Twitter and Wikipedia. Effective scientific communication through free public platforms can help spread awareness of clinical indicators of TBI, such as the fencing response. Greater awareness of the fencing response as a "red-flag" sign of TBI among coaches, athletic trainers, and sports organizations can help with medical care and return-to-play decisions.

Popular science and education of cosmetic surgery in China: Quality and reliability evaluation of Douyin short videos

BACKGROUND

Douyin APP is the short video APP with the largest number of users in China.

OBJECTIVE

This study aimed to evaluate the quality and reliability of short videos about cosmetic surgery on Douyin.

METHODS

In August 2022, we retrieved and screened 300 short videos related to cosmetic surgery from Douyin, extracted basic video information, encoded the content and identified the video source. The quality and reliability of short video information were evaluated using the DISCERN instrument.

RESULTS

A total of 168 short videos of cosmetic surgery were included in the survey, and the video sources included personal accounts and institutional accounts. Overall, the total proportion of institutional accounts (47/168, 27.98%) is significantly less than that of personal accounts (121/168, 72.02%); nonhealth professionals received the most praises, comments and even collections and reposts, while for-profit academic organizations or institutions received the least. The DISCERN scores of 168 short videos of cosmetic surgery were 3.74-4.58 (average 4.22). Content reliability (p = .04) and overall short video quality (p = .02) are significantly different, but short videos published from different sources have no significant difference in treatment selection (p = .052).

CONCLUSION

The overall information quality and reliability of short videos about cosmetic surgery on Douyin are satisfactory in China.

PATIENT OR PUBLIC CONTRIBUTION

The participants were involved in developing research questions, study design, management and conduct, interpretation of evidence and dissemination.

Quality of Information in Gallstone Disease Videos on TikTok: Cross-sectional Study

BACKGROUND

TikTok was an important channel for consumers to access and adopt health information. But the quality of health content in TikTok remains underinvestigated.

OBJECTIVE

Our study aimed to identify upload sources, contents, and feature information of gallstone disease videos on TikTok and further evaluated the factors related to video quality.

METHODS

We investigated the first 100 gallstone-related videos on TikTok and analyzed these videos' upload sources, content, and characteristics. The quality of videos was evaluated using quantitative scoring tools such as DISCERN instrument, the Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) benchmark criteria, and Global Quality Scores (GQS). Moreover, the correlation between video quality and video characteristics, including duration, likes, comments, and shares, was further investigated.

RESULTS

According to video sources, 81% of the videos were posted by doctors. Furthermore, disease knowledge was the most dominant video content, accounting for 56% of all the videos. The mean DISCERN, JAMA, and GQS scores of all 100 videos are 39.61 (SD 11.36), 2.00 (SD 0.40), and 2.76 (SD 0.95), respectively. According to DISCERN and GQS, gallstone-related videos' quality score on TikTok is not high, mainly at fair (43/100, 43%,) and moderate (46/100, 46%). The total DISCERN scores of doctors were significantly higher than that of individuals and news agencies, surgery techniques were significantly higher than lifestyle and news, and disease knowledge was significantly higher than news, respectively. DISCERN scores and video duration were positively correlated. Negative correlations were found between DISCERN scores and likes and shares of videos. In GQS analysis, no significant differences were found between groups based on different sources or different contents. JAMA was excluded in the video quality and correlation analysis due to a lack of discrimination and inability to evaluate the video quality accurately.

CONCLUSIONS

Although the videos of gallstones on TikTok are mainly provided by doctors and contain disease knowledge, they are of low quality. We found a positive correlation between video duration and video quality. High-quality videos received low attention, and popular videos were of low quality. Medical information on TikTok is currently not rigorous enough to guide patients to make accurate judgments. TikTok was not an appropriate source of knowledge to educate patients due to the low quality and reliability of the information.

Translating and Adapting the DISCERN Instrument Into a Simplified Chinese Version and Validating Its Reliability: Development and Usability Study

BACKGROUND

There is a wide variation in the quality of information available to patients on the treatment of the diseases afflicting them. To help patients find clear and accessible information, many scales have been designed to evaluate the quality of health information, including the Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool; the Suitability Assessment of Materials for evaluation of health-related information for adults; and DISCERN, an instrument for judging the quality of written consumer health information on treatment choices. These instruments are primarily in English. Few of them have been translated and adapted into simplified Chinese tools for health information assessment in China.

OBJECTIVE

This study aimed to translate and adapt DISCERN into the first simplified Chinese version and validate the psychometric properties of this newly developed scale for judging the quality of patient-oriented health information on treatment choices.

METHODS

First, we translated DISCERN into simplified Chinese using rigorous guidelines for translation and validation studies. We tested the translation equivalence and measured the content validity index. We then presented the simplified Chinese instrument to 3 health educators and asked them to use it to assess the quality of 15 lung cancer-related materials. We calculated the Cohen κ coefficient and Cronbach α for all items and for the entire scale to determine the reliability of the new tool.

RESULTS

We decided on the simplified Chinese version of the DISCERN instrument (C-DISCERN) after resolving all problems in translation, adaptation, and content validation. The C-DISCERN was valid and reliable: the content validity index was 0.98 (47/48, 98% of the items) for clarity and 0.94 (45/48, 94% of the items) for relevance, the Cronbach α for internal consistency was .93 (95% CI 0.699-1.428) for the whole translated scale, and the Cohen κ coefficient for internal consistency was 0.53 (95% CI 0.417-0.698).

CONCLUSIONS

C-DISCERN is the first simplified Chinese version of the DISCERN instrument. Its validity and reliability have been attested to assess the quality of patient-targeted information for treatment choices.

Wikipedia provides better quality medical information on male sexual dysfunctions than Baidu Encyclopedia (Preprint)

Background

Sexual dysfunction is a private set of disorders that may cause stigma for patients when discussing their private problems with doctors. They might also feel reluctant to initiate a face-to-face consultation. Internet searches are gradually becoming the first choice for people with sexual dysfunction to obtain health information. Globally, Wikipedia is the most popular and consulted validated encyclopedia website in the English-speaking world. Baidu Encyclopedia is becoming the dominant source in Chinese-speaking regions; however, the objectivity and readability of the content are yet to be evaluated.

Objective

Hence, we aimed to evaluate the reliability, readability, and objectivity of male sexual dysfunction content on Wikipedia and Baidu Encyclopedia.

Methods

The Chinese Baidu Encyclopedia and English Wikipedia were investigated. All possible synonymous and derivative keywords for the most common male sexual dysfunction, erectile dysfunction, premature ejaculation, and their most common complication, chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome, were screened. Two doctors evaluated the articles on Chinese Baidu Encyclopedia and English Wikipedia. The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) scoring system, DISCERN instrument, and Global Quality Score (GQS) were used to assess the quality of disease-related articles.

Results

The total DISCERN scores (P=.002) and JAMA scores (P=.001) for Wikipedia were significantly higher than those of Baidu Encyclopedia; there was no statistical difference between the GQS scores (P=.31) for these websites. Specifically, the DISCERN Section 1 score (P<.001) for Wikipedia was significantly higher than that of Baidu Encyclopedia, while the differences between the DISCERN Section 2 and 3 scores (P=.14 and P=.17, respectively) were minor. Furthermore, Wikipedia had a higher proportion of high total DISCERN scores (P<.001) and DISCERN Section 1 scores (P<.001) than Baidu Encyclopedia. Baidu Encyclopedia and Wikipedia both had low DISCERN Section 2 and 3 scores (P=.49 and P=.99, respectively), and most of these scores were low quality.

Conclusions

Wikipedia provides more reliable, higher quality, and more objective information than Baidu Encyclopedia. Yet, there are opportunities for both platforms to vastly improve their content quality. Moreover, both sites had similar poor quality content on treatment options. Joint efforts of physicians, physician associations, medical institutions, and internet platforms are needed to provide reliable, readable, and objective knowledge about diseases.

Short-Video Apps as a Health Information Source for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: Information Quality Assessment of TikTok Videos

BACKGROUND

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) has become one of the most critical public health problems worldwide. Because many COPD patients are using video-based social media to search for health information, there is an urgent need to assess the information quality of COPD videos on social media. Recently, the short-video app TikTok has demonstrated huge potential in disseminating health information and there are currently many COPD videos available on TikTok; however, the information quality of these videos remains unknown.

OBJECTIVE

The aim of this study was to investigate the information quality of COPD videos on TikTok.

METHODS

In December 2020, we retrieved and screened 300 videos from TikTok and collected a sample of 199 COPD-related videos in Chinese for data extraction. We extracted the basic video information, coded the content, and identified the video sources. Two independent raters assessed the information quality of each video using the DISCERN instrument.

RESULTS

COPD videos on TikTok came mainly from two types of sources: individual users (n=168) and organizational users (n=31). The individual users included health professionals, individual science communicators, and general TikTok users, whereas the organizational users consisted of for-profit organizations, nonprofit organizations, and news agencies. For the 199 videos, the mean scores of the DISCERN items ranged from 3.42 to 4.46, with a total mean score of 3.75. Publication reliability (P=.04) and overall quality (P=.02) showed significant differences across the six types of sources, whereas the quality of treatment choices showed only a marginally significant difference (P=.053) across the different sources.

CONCLUSIONS

The overall information quality of COPD videos on TikTok is satisfactory, although the quality varies across different sources and according to specific quality dimensions. Patients should be selective and cautious when watching COPD videos on TikTok.