How much information regarding gingival enlargement can we get from TikTok and YouTube?

Spec Care Dentist. 2024 Jan 4. doi: 10.1111/scd.12957. Online ahead of print.

Abstract

Aims: This study aimed to evaluate and compare the reliability and quality of the information about gingival enlargements on YouTube and TikTok.

Methods: Two popular video sites, YouTube and TikTok, were searched for gingival enlargement and gingival hyperplasia. The reliability and quality of the first 300 videos for each search term, which is 1200 videos in total, were evaluated by social media video content evaluation tools: Global Quality Score (GQS) for quality and modified DISCERN for reliability.

Results: Health professionals uploaded 68.6% of the videos on YouTube and 54.5% on TikTok. It was observed that 50% of TikTok videos and 65.9% of YouTube videos were educational. In terms of quality, 2.7% of the videos on YouTube are of excellent quality, while in TikTok there are no videos of perfect quality. TikTok videos had considerably more views, likes, viewing rates, and interaction index scores than YouTube videos (P < 0.01).

Conclusions: The videos and pieces of information on YouTube are more reliable and accurate in terms of gingival enlargement when compared to TikTok. Nevertheless, it was discovered that videos on both platforms were of poor reliability and quality in general.

Keywords: Global Quality Score (GQS); TikTok; YouTube; gingival enlargement; oral health; social media.