Credibility, educational quality, and specialty-specific depth of meniscal injury information on Douyin: a cross-sectional study

Background We evaluate the credibility, overall educational quality, and specialty-specific depth of Douyin videos on meniscal injury, examined the relationship between information quality and dissemination metrics, and proposed improvement strategies. Methods On July 31, 2025, two Chinese keywords were searched under three sorting modes; the top 50 results per query were collected ( n = 300). Videos were included if they substantially addressed meniscal injury, symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, rehabilitation, or care-seeking. After de-duplication and exclusions, 143 videos remained. A three-tier framework was applied using the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) benchmarks, the modified DISCERN tool, Global Quality Score (GQS), and the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) Meniscus-specific Score (MSS). Two trained sports-medicine raters independently and blindly scored all videos with adjudication for disagreements. Kruskal-Wallis tests compared scores across video source and content categories; Spearman correlation assessed associations among tools. Results Median (IQR) scores were JAMA 2 (2–2), DISCERN 2 (2–2), GQS 2 (1–3), and MSS 3 (1–8), indicating low transparency, evidence disclosure, and educational value, with variable meniscus-specific depth. Across source categories, JAMA, DISCERN, and MSS differed significantly (all p < 0.001), whereas GQS did not. A cross content categories, JAMA ( p = 0.014) and MSS ( p = 0.028) differed significantly, whereas DISCERN and GQS did not. Videos by professional physicians and rehabilitation therapists outperformed those by fitness enthusiasts and patients on MSS and some credibility metrics. By content, “treatment pathway and surgical options” achieved higher MSS, whereas “rehabilitation training and postoperative recovery” more often missed key points. Correlations were positive across tools; GQS correlated most strongly with MSS ( r = 0.638, p < 0.01), while JAMA and DISCERN showed moderate correlations with MSS, suggesting complementarity between professional depth and credible disclosure. Among dissemination metrics, only comments differed significantly across video source and content categories ( p = 0.041; p = 0.023); likes, saves, and shares did not consistently reflect quality, indicating a decoupling between engagement and quality. Conclusions Using a three-tier framework, we found low professionalism, transparency, and educational value in Douyin videos on meniscal injury. Engagement appears decoupled from quality. We recommends a minimum disclosure checklist, platform-level structured publishing and credibility labels with weighted distribution, and standardized short videos by medical institutions integrated with offline education. The findings provide empirical evidence and practical implications for improving health information quality and informing governance strategies on Chinese short-video platforms.