Evaluation of the information quality related to osteoporosis on TikTok
Aoying Li, Qiqiang Xing, Yu Zhang, Wanda Zhan, Sibo Zhu, Linbing Lou, Chuan Jiang, Zhenzhen Guo, Hao Sun
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Osteoporosis is currently considered the most common bone disease in the world and is characterized by low bone mass, deterioration of the bone tissue microstructure, and decreased bone strength. With the increasing popularity of smartphones and short videos, many patients search for various types of health information through social media, such as short videos. As one of China's short video giants, TikTok has played a significant role in spreading health information. We found that there are many videos about osteoporosis on TikTok; however, the quality of these short videos has not yet been evaluated. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the information quality of osteoporosis videos on the domestic TikTok platform. METHODS: We retrieved and screened 100 videos about osteoporosis from TikTok, extracted the basic information, encoded the video content, and recorded the source of each video. Two independent raters evaluated the information quality of each video via the DISCERN rating scale. RESULT: The videos were divided into three groups according to their source: medical personnel, science communicators, and news media, with medical personnel posting the most videos. The content of the video is divided into 7 groups, namely, disease prevention, disease diagnosis, disease symptoms, disease overview, life-style, drug knowledge, and drug treatment, with the most videos related to disease overview. The average DISCERN score of the videos is 37.69 (SD = 6.78), mainly within the 'poor' (54/100, 54%) and 'appropriate' (43/100, 43%) rating ranges, with overall quality being low. Further analysis revealed a positive correlation between the number of shares, comments, likes, and favorites, and a positive correlation between the DISCERN score and the number of shares and favorites. CONCLUSION: The overall quality of videos concerning osteoporosis on TikTok is lower, but the quality of videos varies significantly across different sources. We should be selective and cautious when watching videos about osteoporosis on TikTok.