Background/purpose: With increasing accessibility to the Internet, patients frequently use the Internet for hearing healthcare information. No study has examined the information about hearing loss available in the Mandarin language on online video-sharing platforms. The study's primary purpose is to investigate the content, source, understandability, and actionability of hearing loss information in the Mandarin language's one hundred most popular online videos.
Method: In this project, publicly accessible online videos were analyzed. One hundred of the most popular Mandarin-language videos about hearing loss were identified (51 videos on YouTube and 49 on the Bilibili video-sharing platform). They were manually coded for different popularity metrics, sources, and content. Each video was also rated using the Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool for Audiovisual Materials (PEMAT-AV) to measure the understandability and actionability scores.
Results: The video sources were classified as either media (n = 36), professional (n = 39), or consumer (n = 25). The videos covered various topics, including symptoms, consequences, and treatment of hearing loss. Overall, videos attained adequate understandability scores (mean = 73.6%) but low (mean = 43.4%) actionability scores.
Conclusions: While existing online content related to hearing loss is quite diverse and largely understandable, those videos provide limited actionable information. Hearing healthcare professionals, media, and content creators can help patients better understand their conditions and make educated hearing healthcare decisions by focusing on the actionability information in their online videos.
Keywords: BiliBili; Hearing loss; Internet health information; Social media; YouTube.
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