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. 2021 Dec 20;23(12):e28318.
doi: 10.2196/28318.

Short-Video Apps as a Health Information Source for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: Information Quality Assessment of TikTok Videos

Shijie Song #  1 , Xiang Xue  2 , Yuxiang Chris Zhao  3 , Jinhao Li  4 , Qinghua Zhu  2 , Mingming Zhao  5
Affiliations

Short-Video Apps as a Health Information Source for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: Information Quality Assessment of TikTok Videos

Shijie Song et al. J Med Internet Res. .

Abstract

Background: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) has become one of the most critical public health problems worldwide. Because many COPD patients are using video-based social media to search for health information, there is an urgent need to assess the information quality of COPD videos on social media. Recently, the short-video app TikTok has demonstrated huge potential in disseminating health information and there are currently many COPD videos available on TikTok; however, the information quality of these videos remains unknown.

Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the information quality of COPD videos on TikTok.

Methods: In December 2020, we retrieved and screened 300 videos from TikTok and collected a sample of 199 COPD-related videos in Chinese for data extraction. We extracted the basic video information, coded the content, and identified the video sources. Two independent raters assessed the information quality of each video using the DISCERN instrument.

Results: COPD videos on TikTok came mainly from two types of sources: individual users (n=168) and organizational users (n=31). The individual users included health professionals, individual science communicators, and general TikTok users, whereas the organizational users consisted of for-profit organizations, nonprofit organizations, and news agencies. For the 199 videos, the mean scores of the DISCERN items ranged from 3.42 to 4.46, with a total mean score of 3.75. Publication reliability (P=.04) and overall quality (P=.02) showed significant differences across the six types of sources, whereas the quality of treatment choices showed only a marginally significant difference (P=.053) across the different sources.

Conclusions: The overall information quality of COPD videos on TikTok is satisfactory, although the quality varies across different sources and according to specific quality dimensions. Patients should be selective and cautious when watching COPD videos on TikTok.

Keywords: COPD; TikTok; information quality; short-video apps; social media.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest: None declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Search strategy and video screening procedure.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Percentage of videos addressing each chronic obstructive pulmonary disease topic.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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