As the second most popular website in the world15, with over one billion hours of video watched per day 16, YouTube is an extremely influential resource in entertainment and information gathering for millions of people. Not surprisingly, the site has become a frequently relied upon source of patient medical information gathering, especially by younger physicians, residents and students17. Given its popularity and global reach, YouTube has the potential to be an important educational tool for patients, conveying essential health information that could help decrease morbidity and economic burden of preventable diseases18. The challenge remains that, while abundant in quantity, the information available is often published by a non-vetted, non-peer reviewed source, and lacks the quality patients require. Multiple studies evaluating the content of YouTube videos as a source of patient information across different specialties have found them to be of subpar quality and have questioned their usefulness in finding reliable and accurate information.19–22
Just as YouTube has become a quickly turned to source of medical information for patients, medical students and providers are turning to its content more frequently.1–2 With younger generations of medical professionals having access to an exponentially increasing amount of content on YouTube and other social media platforms to augment their learning, caution must be taken prior to utilizing these sources. Their content and publishers should be thoroughly vetted to ensure the information presented is complete and accurate. Other studies have evaluated YouTube content for physical exam skills, procedures, and surgeries and have found, similar to health informational videos accessed by patients, that their content is often questionable in quality and completeness. 23–26
Visual aids and hands on simulations can be invaluable tools in learning proper techniques in regional anesthesia. Recognizing the important role videos can play in augmenting regional anesthesia education, we set out to evaluate the content of the five most viewed videos for each of 7 ultrasound guided nerve blocks. While a few of the videos were very thorough, touching on nearly 90% of the 18 categories we designated as evaluation criteria, many were lacking a significant amount of information. The overall completeness of the YouTube videos was compared to the content published on the websites of three well respected authorities in regional anesthesia (NYSORA, ACEP and USRA) and noted to be significantly lacking. Figure 2 summarizes these findings.
As previous studies on the utility of YouTube content have noted, we found that even among the five most viewed instructional videos per nerve block that there was a significant variation in completeness. Among all categories evaluated, “references” was missing from nearly 86% of YouTube videos. This is concerning given the fact that the site is an open source platform, allowing anyone to upload content without oversight. In contrast, the regional anesthesia society websites cited multiple references for each nerve block in question 100% of the time.
Whereas YouTube has the potential to be an invaluable tool for patients and providers, offering a plethora of extremely easily accessible content, it must be used in the proper manner in order to avoid receiving incomplete, and possibly inaccurate information. As students and young physicians, consulting the content published by the established authorities on regional anesthesia to learn foundational knowledge for each nerve block would be most advisable. However, there may be a role in consulting further video content after the provider has knowledge and experience with the procedure to evaluate different techniques or refresh their skills.