YouTube as a Source of Information on Radiation Therapy

Purpose: YouTube has more than 1.8 billion users and is the largest online platform for open access video content, including informational content and entertainment videos [1]. Institutions and healthcare professionals have turned to YouTube to disseminate patient education videos. As such, there is a strong need for classification and subsequent curation of medical content on YouTube. This study aimed to assess available content regarding radiation oncology on YouTube.

Methodology: Videos related to radiation oncology were assessed in early November 2021 using YouTube search for 3 key phrases: “radiation oncology”, “radiation therapy”, and “radiotherapy”. The videos were sorted by the default setting of “Relevance” to search term. The top 60 videos for each phrase were analyzed, as previous research has shown that 90% of search engine users select a result within the first three pages, and YouTube historically has included 20 results per page [2]. The following metrics were collected: views, likes, dislikes, comments, length of video, upload date, author, author type, treatment modality (if applicable), cancer type (if applicable), and region of origin. Descriptive statistics were compiled.

Results: There were 180 non-duplicate videos assessed as a part of this analysis. From these videos, 62 videos (35%) were educational videos for patients, 26 (14%) educational videos for trainees, 28 (15%) procedural overview, 5 (3%) patient experience, 14 (8%) promotional, 27 (15%) other, and 18 (10%) residency program promotional videos. The average video was 630 seconds long (IQR, 510 seconds). The overall number of views for all videos was 9,053,195 (median, 7,932; IQR, 1,461-36,024). The number of likes on all videos was higher than dislikes (38,612 vs 2,257). These videos received more than 2,403 comments. Users from the United States comprised the highest number of uploads by geographic region (64%). Videos categorized as education videos for patients had the highest number of views (3,930,658), whereas videos categorized in the residency program promotional category had the lowest number of views (34,540). For applicable videos, the most common treatment modality and cancer type were external beam radiation therapy and breast cancer, respectively. The most highly viewed video was authored by Cancer Research UK (an independent cancer charity), titled "RIGHT NOW: Megan’s Radiotherapy” in the Patient Experience category.

Conclusions: This study serves to assess the nature and quantity of radiation therapy videos on YouTube. As more patients turn to online platforms for informational content, it is crucial that stakeholders consider these factors before investing resources in audiovisual media production.

References: 1. YouTube User Statistics 2021. Statista. Accessed December 2021. https://www.globalmediainsight.com/blog/youtube-users-statistics/.
2. iProspect Search Engine User Behavior Study. iProspect.com/ Inc. Accessed November 2021. http://district4.extension.ifas.ufl.edu/Tech/TechPubs/WhitePaper_2006_SearchEngineUserBehavior.pdf.