Utility Evaluation of Information from YouTube on Breastfeeding for Preterm Babies

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: Many studies have reported the merits of breastfeeding, and increasing efforts are made to encourage breastfeeding for preterm babies. Recently, YouTube is being increasingly used as a source of medical information. We evaluated the quality of information provided on YouTube on breastfeeding for preterm babies.METHODS: On June 20, 2018, we performed a YouTube search using four terms related to breastfeeding for preterm babies. Of the 355 videos in the first five pages, 78 were analyzed; videos with irrelevant content (n=200), duplicated material (n=71), and those using another (non-Korean) language (n=6) were excluded. Videos were classified according to upload source and usefulness, and were evaluated based on reliability and quality.RESULTS: Medical websites or TV channels (46.2%) and physicians or hospitals (12.8 %) were the most and least common upload sources, respectively. The usefulness of the information was rated the highest in physician or hospital-uploaded videos (70.0%). The reliability of the physician or hospital-uploaded (2.70±1.42) and medical website or TV channel-uploaded (2.91±1.42) videos were statistically significant. The highest proportion of good quality videos (≥good) (60.0%) comprised physician or hospital-uploaded videos. Of the videos evaluated, 44.9% were useful. The highest proportion of useful videos comprised those uploaded by medical websites or TV channels (68.6%). The highest proportion of non-useful videos comprised civilian videos (80.8%).CONCLUSION: Physician or hospital-uploaded videos were more useful and had excellent reliability and quality; however, these had the least amount of information. Development of educational programs by experts that can be accessed by public through popular platforms like YouTube is necessary.