The utilisation, application and quality of videos of clinical interventions in peer-reviewed literature: a scoping review.

Abstract

Background: Videos of clinical interventions (VoCI) demonstrating surgical and interventional procedures have become a mainstay in clinical practice and peer-reviewed academic literature. Despite the widespread availability of VoCI in the literature, there remains no established guidelines regarding the reporting of VoCI. We undertook a scoping review to investigate the current utilisation, application, and quality in VoCI reporting.

Methods: A comprehensive literature search of MEDLINE, EMBASE, Emcare and CINAHL databases was performed to retrieve articles presenting VoCI, from January 2020 to December 2023. A customised data extraction tool assessed video characteristics (e.g. case presentation, outcomes), utility (e.g. target audience, reproducibility of procedure) and quality (subjective and objective).

Results: Six hundred and twenty-four VoCI were included (mean length 06:06), with over 62 hours of VoCI reviewed. The most common VoCI perspectives were endoscopic (n = 153; 25%) and laparoscopic (n = 140; 22%). The clinical background and outcomes were described in 480 (76.9%) and 403 cases (64.6%), respectively, with disclosures (n = 23; 3.8%) rarely presented. VoCI primarily targeted trainees (n = 547; 87.7%) with most videos providing technical guidance (n = 394; 63.1%). Two hundred and forty-eight videos (40%) were rated as medium or low quality on subjective assessment.

Conclusions: There is significant heterogeneity and notably poor quality control in VoCI reporting in peer-reviewed literature resulting in the omission of critical procedural steps and suboptimal visual quality. VoCI reporting guidelines are therefore urgently required to provide a set of minimum items that should be reported by clinicians when uploading VoCI.