The role of YouTube® videos in heart surgery decision

Abstract

Background: Finding a surgeon and center they can trust is essential for a patient who will be for heart surgery. YouTube® is a modern method at this decision stage as a visual source of information that includes many user comments. In this study, we examined how accurately YouTube® resources guide patients. Method: The social media platform's official page (https://www.youtube.com) was used for this research. Keywords "heart surgery," "open-heart surgery," "robotic heart surgery" were selected as keywords for related video searches. Advertising promotions and videos with game content have been removed from search results. As the videos' evaluation criteria included in the study, relevance, date added, the number of views, views/likes rate, the descriptive response rate to comments, and video quality were determined. Result: The most popular 1069 videos were evaluated between 05.10.2020 - 05.01.2021. Of these, 70 videos with the highest level of interest were evaluated. Video views median value is 26401 (IQR; 4968-1998337). Engagement rate median value 0,55 (IQR 0,40 -0,88). Average value median 1,67 (IQR 0,35 – 10,68). The comment/subscriber rate median value was 0.0010% (IQR; 0.0233% - 0.0585%). Conclusion: Despite the ease of access to information sources in the information age, the importance of face-to-face meetings is still indispensable in information transfer. Because when it comes to illness, people look for knowledge, trust, and complacency. Patients want to know the person they will entrust their health to and ask questions repeatedly, even if it is the same question. Video sources can still only give a preliminary idea.

Keywords

• Heart surgery
• YouTube video
• Patient care

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