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Background: Recently, the frequency of both total knee arthroplasty (TKA) and total hip arthroplasty (THA) surgeries has been increasing due to the rising prevalence of osteoarthritis. Rehabilitation is essential to optimize surgical outcomes and is an integral part of the recovery process. Today, the internet has become a source of health information for patients and their families. Many individuals access YouTube to learn about their disease and treatment options. However, videos on YouTube may contain inadequate or inaccurate information because they have not undergone a review process, and may be of questionable quality and reliability because they are not regularly updated.
Objectives: This study aims to analyze the quality and reliability of videos on TKA and THA rehabilitation on the Youtube platform, to add to the existing literature and to provide users with more useful information.
Methods: The keywords “exercise”, “rehabilitation”, “physical therapy” and “physiotherapy” were used to search YouTube for TKA and THA videos on 20.10.2024. In total, 24 search terms were identified. A total of 1200 videos (600 THA - 600 THA), 50 videos for each of the 24 search terms, were included in the study. Duplicates, irrelevant videos, videos not in English, videos without audio or subtitles were excluded from the study. The remaining 100 THA videos and 126 TKA videos were analyzed. The videos were evaluated by 2 independent physiotherapists. The quality of the videos was assessed using the Global Quality Scale (GQS) and the reliability was assessed using the Modified DISCERN tool scale. In addition, video parameters such as number of likes, views, and the source from which the video was uploaded to Youtube were recorded.
Results: Most of the included THA videos (n=58, 58%) and most of the TKA videos (n=55, 43.7%) were shared by institutions such as hospitals, clinics or universities. Of the THA videos evaluated, 31 (31%) were of high quality and 40 (40%) were of medium quality, and the majority of the evaluated videos (n=77, 77%) were of low reliability. Of the evaluated TKA videos, 47 (37.3%) were of high quality, 43 (34.1%) were of moderate quality, and 92 (73.0%) of the evaluated videos were of low reliability. When the characteristics of THA videos were compared between high, medium and low quality videos, it was found that there was a strong relationship between the number of subscribers and the number of daily video views and video quality (p<0.05). In TKA videos, when the characteristics of the videos and quality were compared, it was determined that there was a strong relationship between duration, number of daily video views, number of daily likes and number of daily comments and video quality (p<0.05). In THA videos, when video parameters and reliability groups were compared, it was found that there was a relationship between all video characteristics and video reliability (p<0.05). Videos with a higher number of subscribers and duration, videos with a lower duration after being uploaded to YouTube, videos with a higher average number of daily views, likes and comments were found to have higher reliability. When the video parameters in TKA videos were compared according to the reliability groups, it was determined that there was a relationship between the time elapsed after uploading to YouTube and the number of daily likes and video reliability (p<0.05). It was observed that videos with less time elapsed after being uploaded to YouTube and with fewer average daily likes had higher reliability. When the video sources and reliability groups were compared in THA and TKA videos, it was seen that most of the THA videos with high reliability (n=18, 78.3%) and most of the TKA videos (n=14, 41.2%) were uploaded by other healthcare professionals. There was a relationship between video sources and video reliability (p<0.05). When video sources and quality groups were compared, most of the THA videos with high and medium quality were uploaded by institutions such as hospitals, clinics or universities (n=15, 48.4%) (n=24, 60%). There was no relationship between video sources and video quality (p>0.05). In addition, most of the TKA videos with high quality (n=21, 44.7%) were uploaded by institutions such as hospitals, clinics or universities, while most of the videos with moderate quality (n=25, 58.1%) were uploaded by healthcare professionals. There was a relationship between video sources and video quality (p<0.05). When reliability and quality groups were compared for both rehabilitation topics, significant differences were found between mDISCERN scores and GQS scores (P<0.05). Most of the high and medium quality videos were found to have lower reliability.
Conclusion: Nowadays, patients are increasingly accessing YouTube for health information. YouTube can be considered an important source of ‘medium to high quality’ videos for THA and TKA rehabilitation videos.Considering this situation, the accuracy of patients’ use of YouTube videos to obtain information is questionable. This low reliability may be due to the fact that uploaded videos ‘do not cite valid sources’, ‘do not list additional sources of information for patient reference’ and videos often ‘do not address controversial/uncertain areas’. It would be beneficial for physicians, other health professionals and health organizations to upload more reliability videos so that individuals can access more reliable and quality information about diseases.
REFERENCES: [1] Harris WH, et al. Total hip and total knee replacement (2). N Engl J Med. 1990;323: 801-7.
[2] Madathil KC, et al. Healthcare information on YouTube: A systematic review. Health Informatics Journal. 2015;21:173 194.
[3] Hussein E, et al. Measuring misinformation in video search platforms: An audit study on YouTube. Proc ACM Hum Comput Interact. 2020;4:1–27.
Acknowledgements: NIL.
Disclosure of Interests: None declared.
© The Authors 2025. This abstract is an open access article published in Annals of Rheumatic Diseases under the CC BY-NC-ND license (