Hypospadias surgery on YouTube: is it valid?

BACKGROUND This study aims to evaluate video clips of hypospadias surgery on YouTube and to assess their competence for basic steps of hypospadias surgery. METHODS The YouTube (http://www.youtube.com) was screened for videos of hypospadias surgery between 1 December 2018 and 20 December 2018. Videos were divided into three groups based on the subjective utility checklist scores as follows: highly compatible (Group 1; ≥7 points), moderately compatible (Group 2; 5-6 points), and less compatible (Group 3; ≤4 points). Groups were compared statistically. RESULTS A total of 100 videos were included in this study. The mean total score was 4.48 ± 1.97. There were 15 (15%) videos in Group 1, 42 (42%) in Group 2, and 43 (43%) in Group 3. There was a statistically significant difference in the total score, duration of videos, and like/dislike ratios among the groups (p<0.001, for all). There was a strong and significant correlation between the total scores and the step of glanuloplasty and skin closure (r: 0.805, p<0.001 and r: 0.770, p<0.001, respectively). CONCLUSIONS Our study results suggest that the educational content of the videos of hypospadias surgery on YouTube is unsatisfactory. We believe that such videos must contain information regarding the surgical steps of glanuloplasty, skin closure, flap transposition, and urethroplasty and detailed information about the suture materials.