Social Media Depiction of Cleft Lip and Cleft Palate: Instagram Versus YouTube Shorts Analysis: Instagram Post Versus Instagram Reel Analysis.

Study design: Qualitative analysis study.

Introduction: Social media has been pivotal in the dissemination of medical knowledge to the public. The aim was to identify the demographics of individuals posting about cleft lip and palate on YouTube Shorts and Instagram, to characterize the content of these posts, and to highlight factors that could aid surgeons in better educating patients with cleft lip and palate.

Methods: Instagram posts and YouTube Shorts with "#cleftlip", "#cleftawareness", "#cleftpalate", "#cleftplipandpalate", and "#cleftproud" were searched on 8 June 2024. Postings were subclassified and analyzed for content, including topics of posts, authors, media type, tone of the post, and year of post.

Results: A total of 3321 posts were analyzed, with 2698 coming from Instagram and 623 from YouTube Shorts. The majority of content creators were patients and their family members (n = 2054, 61.8%), cleft lip and palate foundations (n = 384, 11.6%), and companies (n = 381, 11.5%). Only 167 posts were authored by physicians (5.1%). Among the educational and informational posts, patients and family members accounted for the majority of the posts (409 posts, 57.7%). Physicians contributed to a small fraction of the educational content (37 posts, 5.2%).

Conclusions: Physician participation in the cleft lip and palate social media realm on Instagram and YouTube Shorts was found to be limited. Moreover, there was a scarcity of educational content on both platforms, indicating a significant opportunity for physicians to engage more actively in cleft lip and palate social media discussions.