An analysis of YouTube videos as educational resources for dental practitioners to prevent the spread of COVID-19

BACKGROUND: Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was first reported on 31 December 2019 and has rapidly been spreading day by day. Dental patients and professionals have a high risk of the coronavirus infection and also have a huge responsibility to prevent its spread during emergency dental treatment over the period of the COVID-19 outbreak. AIM: Informing patients and dental practitioners about the novel coronavirus in an accurate and effective way is very important. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the quality of dentistry-related medical information about COVID-19 on YouTube as educational resources for dental practitioners. METHODS: YouTube was queried for the search phrases ‘COVID-19 and dental practice’, ‘SARS-Cov-2 and dental practice’ and ‘2019-COV-2 and dental practice’. The first 100 videos for each term were viewed and analysed by 3 independent investigators. The scope was limited to videos in English. RESULTS: The search phrases yielded 1102 videos, among which 802 videos were excluded and 300 videos screened. Fifty-five videos were included in the final analysis. Of the 55 videos, only 2 videos (3.6%) were found to be of good quality, while 24 videos (43.6%) were found to be of poor quality. CONCLUSION: YouTube is a popular video broadcast site and can provide both relevant educational information and the spreading of misinformation. Health professionals should play a more active role with regard to educative information given on social media, especially YouTube, during global disease outbreaks.