Top 100 TikTok Hits: Quality and Misinformation in Pelvic Pain Content

INTRODUCTION: Many people turn to social media to obtain medical information, drawn by its familiarity and accessibility. TikTok has become a powerful tool for spreading health-related content, impacting how people pursue, exchange, and trust health care advice. Prior studies have shown that gynecology-related videos on TikTok contained as high as 18–23% misleading information. Due to the potential for misinformation, healthcare professionals (HCPs) play a vital role in producing and evaluating the quality of the content most readily available to social media users. As of this submission, there is no published data looking at the quality and accuracy of information on TikTok related to pelvic pain. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the most viewed TikTok videos on pelvic pain for quality and misinformation. METHODS: We performed a cross-sectional analysis of the top 100 viewed TikTok videos that resulted when we searched the phrase “pelvic pain.” Videos were excluded from the study if they were unavailable for viewing during the scoring period, and all videos analyzed were in English. We abstracted video likes, shares, views, length, and author information on a single calendar day. Video length was determined by a definitive end time point and did not include additional time for those on loop. Three independent reviewers analyzed the videos using the Medical Quality Video Evaluation Tool (MQ-VET), a validated tool for assessing medical video quality where videos are scored on a scale of 15 to 75. Two medical professionals evaluated the videos for misinformation, and an independent reviewer resolved discrepancies. Statistical analysis was performed using the Mann–Whitney test for continuous variables and Fisher's exact test for categorical variables. Categorical variables were expressed as proportions, while continuous variables were described as medians with interquartile ranges. RESULTS: Of the 100 videos screened, 97 were included in the study (97%). Three videos were excluded due to an expired link at the time of MQ-VET assessment. HCPs created 48.5% of the included videos. Videos from HCPs were significantly longer in length (34 vs 15 seconds, P=0.02) and rated as higher in quality (56 vs 42, P<0.001) based on the MQ-VET score. Otherwise, there was no difference in videos by HCPs or non-HCPs in terms of likes, shares, or views. Misinformation was found in 15 (15.5%) videos; there was no difference in the presence of misinformation between videos created by HCPs and non-HCPs (19.2% vs 12%, P=0.41). There were no differences in likes, shares, or views between videos with and without misinformation. Types of misinformation included the epidemiology, symptom presentation, and treatment options for pelvic pain (Figure 1). CONCLUSIONS: Many of the top TikTok videos on pelvic pain contained misinformation, irrespective of whether the video was created by a healthcare professional. Therefore, healthcare professionals should be aware of this discrepancy and seek to provide correct information to their patients. This is also a call to action for high-quality, more accurate content creation by our medical community (Tables 1 and 2).