Dissemination of misleading and biased information about benign prostate hyperplasia on YouTube in the Republic of Korea

IF 4 2区医学 Q2 UROLOGY & NEPHROLOGY

Prostate International Pub Date : 2026-06-01 Epub Date: 2026-01-07 DOI:10.1016/j.prnil.2025.12.008

Min S. Song, Jeongwan Yoo, Hyun K. Jang, Byeong J. Jeon, Bum S. Tae, Jae H. Bae, Jae Y. Park

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Background

YouTube, a social media platform with over one billion users worldwide, has become a prominent source for health information among the public. Many individuals now turn to YouTube when seeking medical knowledge. This study aimed to evaluate the quality of health information presented in videos concerning benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) on YouTube.

Methods

We conducted a quality assessment of BPH-related content on YouTube in the Republic of Korea, analyzing the 100 most-viewed videos. The validated DISCERN instrument, a standardized tool for evaluating consumer health information, was used. DISCERN consists of 16 questions, each scored on a five-point scale (1 = poor, 2 = generally poor, 3 = moderate, 4 = good, 5 = excellent).

Results

The top 100 videos collectively accumulated 24.7 million views, with a median of 89,764 views per video and a median of 1,100 thumbs up per video. The mean DISCERN score for overall quality was 2.8, indicating a moderate level of information quality. Videos uploaded by urologists working in university hospitals and those posted by laypersons had a comparable number of views per video, while the latter received more thumbs up per video (2,752 vs 4,012). Fifty-two videos (52%) contained potentially misleading or commercially biased content, accumulating a total of 16.4 million views (3,15,456 views per video) and 5,182 thumbs up per video. A significant negative correlation was found between overall quality and views per month (r = −0.38, P < 0.01), whereas no significant correlation was observed between scientific quality and the thumbs up/views ratio (r = 0.06, P = 0.58).

Conclusions

Low quality and layperson-generated YouTube videos on BPH gained more engagement than high-quality content. This highlights the paradoxical appeal of misleading and biased information and the need for stronger involvement of healthcare professionals to promote accurate and unbiased resources online.

查看原文本刊更多论文

在韩国YouTube上传播关于良性前列腺增生的误导性和有偏见的信息。

背景：YouTube是一个在全球拥有超过10亿用户的社交媒体平台，已成为公众健康信息的重要来源。现在，许多人在寻求医学知识时都转向YouTube。本研究旨在评估YouTube上有关良性前列腺增生（BPH）的视频中呈现的健康信息的质量。方法：我们对韩国YouTube上的bph相关内容进行了质量评估，分析了100个观看次数最多的视频。使用了经过验证的DISCERN仪器，这是一种评估消费者健康信息的标准化工具。《辨别》由16个问题组成，每个问题按5分制打分（1 =差，2 =一般差，3 =一般，4 =良好，5 =优秀）。结果：排名前100的视频累计浏览量为2470万次，平均每个视频浏览量为89764次，平均每个视频获得1100个赞。总体质量的平均辨别得分为2.8，表明信息质量处于中等水平。在大学医院工作的泌尿科医生上传的视频和非专业人士上传的视频在每个视频上的观看次数相当，而后者在每个视频上获得更多的点赞（2752对4012）。52个视频（52%）包含潜在误导或商业偏见的内容，累计观看次数为1640万次（每个视频观看次数为315,456次），每个视频为5,182个赞。综合素质与月浏览量呈显著负相关（r = -0.38, P < 0.01），而科学素质与点赞/浏览量比例无显著相关（r = 0.06, P = 0.58）。结论：低质量和外行人生成的YouTube视频在BPH上比高质量的内容获得更多的参与度。这突出了误导和有偏见的信息的自相矛盾的吸引力，以及医疗保健专业人员加强参与以促进准确和公正的在线资源的必要性。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Prostate International Medicine-Urology

CiteScore

4.40

自引率

26.70%

发文量

审稿时长

35 days

期刊介绍： Prostate International (Prostate Int, PI), the official English-language journal of Asian Pacific Prostate Society (APPS), is an international peer-reviewed academic journal dedicated to basic and clinical studies on prostate cancer, benign prostatic hyperplasia, prostatitis, and ...