Quality and reliability analysis of migraine Botox treatment information on YouTube

YouTube (YT) is one of the world's most well recognized video-sharing platforms that appeals to large audiences and is used by individuals to educate themselves on disease diagnosis and treatment alternatives and to distribute health-related information. Videos were searched by typing the terms "migraine botox" and "botox treatment for migraine" on the YT search bar in English. A total of 50 videos were evaluated for each term. Two independent researchers viewed the videos and documented pertinent descriptive attributes of each video, such as the upload date, number of comments, number of dislikes, number of likes, and views. The videos were analyzed and the DISCERN Global Quality Scale (GQS), Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) quality, and reliability scores were recorded. A total of 100 videos were assessed. The mean DISCERN score was 3.09, the mean JAMA score was 2.11, and the mean GQS score was 3.25. According to the source, 32% of the videos were uploaded by university/nonprofit physicians or professional organizations. In addition, when the DISCERN, GQS, and JAMA scores of the videos uploaded by health professionals were examined, a statistically significant difference was observed (P = .002, P = .015, and P = .002, respectively). However, no statistically significant relationship was found for the Video Popularity Index score. The reliability and quality scores of the evaluated videos uploaded by healthcare professionals for migraine Botox treatment were high, but the frequency of viewership was low. In our analysis of migraine Botox treatment videos on YT, we observed that the information on migraine Botox treatment had a wide spectrum, high-quality content, and that there were videos that may mislead viewers. In conclusion, we believe that the platform is not sufficient in its entirety, and that it should be supported with renewed, fact-checked, easy-to-understand language, and video-duration optimized videos.