Youtube as a Source of Information for the Maxillary Obturators
Author(s): Niler Ozdemir Akkus* and Makbule Heval Sahan
Abstract
Objective: The researchers set out to assess the demographic aspects and usefulness and quality of movies covering maxillary obturator prostheses. Methods: YouTube TM searches were conducted using two terms associated with obturator prostheses. The first hundred videos returned for each search keyword were evaluated for inclusion based on predetermined criteria. Screening out 64 videos allowed us to focus on the remaining 36 and examine them for commonalities, primary function, information substance, and audiovisual quality. Each video also had an interaction index and viewing rate formula computed. Results: There were 90,532 views of the last 36 videos. Medical professionals submitted most videos (n = 21), whereas just 7% were submitted by patients. The majority of videos had mediocre informational quality, scoring an average of 50% ("moderate"), 30% ("poor"), and 19.4% ("excellent"). Videos were rated on a scale from 0 to 10 for usefulness (mean: 3.92 2.258). Twenty (55.6%) of the videos had low utility, nine (25% had medium utility, and seven (19.4%) had high utility. Conclusion: The majority of the videos had information content assessed as "slightly moderate," and the results of this study indicated that patients still could not entirely rely on YouTube TM as a dependable source of information about maxillary obturator prostheses.