Use of YouTube by academic medical centres during the COVID-19 pandemic: an observational study in Taiwan

Yen-Ling Kuo; Ching-Heng Lin; Ya-Yu Wang; Gow-Jen Shieh; Wei-Min Chu

doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2022-071085

Use of YouTube by academic medical centres during the COVID-19 pandemic: an observational study in Taiwan

BMJ Open. 2023 Apr 6;13(4):e071085. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2022-071085.

Authors

Yen-Ling Kuo¹, Ching-Heng Lin², Ya-Yu Wang^{3

4}, Gow-Jen Shieh⁵, Wei-Min Chu^{6

4

7

8

9}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Medical Education, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan.
² Department of Medical Research, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan.
³ Department of Family Medicine, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan.
⁴ School of Medicine, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taipei, Taiwan.
⁵ Department of Top Hospital Administration, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan.
⁶ Department of Family Medicine, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan williamchu0110@gmail.com.
⁷ Department of Post-Baccalaureate Medicine, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung, Taiwan.
⁸ Research Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung, Taiwan.
⁹ Department of Epidemiology on Aging, National Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology, Obu, Japan.

Abstract

Objectives: YouTube has been of immense importance in conveying essential information on COVID-19 and promoting the latest healthcare policies during the outbreak. However, there have been few studies that have focused on how healthcare organisations have used YouTube to communicate with the public and increase their awareness during the pandemic, as well as its effectiveness.

Design: A nationwide observational study.

Settings: We analysed all YouTube video posts culled from the official accounts of all medical centres in Taiwan from December 2019 to August 2021.

Participants: All YouTube videos were categorised as either COVID-19 or non-COVID-19 related. The COVID-19-related videos were divided into five categories, and detailed metrics for each video were recorded. For comparison, we also surveyed all YouTube video posts placed by the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Taiwan Centers for Disease Control (TCDC).

Results: We analysed official YouTube channels from 17 academic medical centres, involving a total of 943 videos. We found a relationship between the quantity of YouTube videos uploaded by the TCDC and the trend of confirmed cases (Pearson's correlation coefficient was 0.25, p=0.02). Data from private hospitals revealed that they posted more COVID-19 videos (103 vs 56) when compared with public hospitals. In addition, multivariate linear regression showed that more 'likes' (estimate 41.1, 95% CI 38.8 to 43.5) and longer lengths (estimate 10 800, 95% CI 6968.0 to 14 632.0) of COVID-19-related videos correlated significantly with an increased number of 'views'.

Conclusions: This nationwide observational study, performed in Taiwan, demonstrates well the trend and effectiveness of academic medical centres in promoting sound healthcare advice regarding COVID-19 through YouTube due to the channel's easy accessibility and usability.

Keywords: COVID-19; health informatics; health policy; public health.

Publication types

Observational Study

MeSH terms

Academic Medical Centers
COVID-19*
Humans
Information Dissemination
Social Media*
Taiwan / epidemiology
Video Recording