Are YouTube Portuguese videos useful as a source of information on diabetes foot care?
Edson da Silva, Marileila Marques Toledo, Jéssica Samara Oliveira Tolomeu, Gabriela De Araujo Nominato, Ana Paula Nogueira Nunes, Lilian Fanny Castilho
Abstract
Studies have been assessed the importance of YouTube as a source of information for some health conditions, diseases or procedures. However, this platform provides an ever-growing, unregulated source, and some of their information may cause health risks to patients. The aim of this study was to evaluate the use of Brazilian YouTube videos as a source of useful information about diabetes foot care. The website www.youtube.com was searched for the term “diabetes foot care” in Brazilian Portuguese to assess their usefulness as an information source. The videos were categorized as very useful, moderately useful, somewhat useful, and not useful, and categorized as organizational, professional, personal and advertisement. The search resulted in 8.080 videos, of which 200 were reviewed, and 159 videos uploaded on YouTube were analysed. Videos were categorized as very useful (6.29%), moderately useful (16.35%), somewhat useful (24.35%), and not useful (52.83%). The video source revealed the following classification: organizational, n = 76; professional, n = 11; personal, n= 46; and advertisement, n = 26. In conclusion, YouTube's Brazilian videos on diabetic foot care are popular, with varied sources and content. However, most of their content is not useful. Therefore, YouTube videos in Portuguese cannot be considered a good source of information about diabetes foot care.