Oral Presentation AANZGOSA-SUGSS ASM 2024

Misinformation on social media platforms relating to hiatus hernia management (108151)

John Yeh 1 2 , Krishna Kotecha 1 2 , Michael Talbot 3 , Garett Smith 1 2 , Daniel Chan 1 3 4
  1. Department of Surgery, Royal North Shore Hospital, Sydney, New South Wales
  2. Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales
  3. Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales
  4. School of Medicine, Western Sydney University, Sydney, New South Wales

PURPOSE

Hiatus hernias (HH) management clinical practice guidelines (CPG) are supported by an established body of scientific literature. Social media is increasingly used for health communication, but the prevalence of misinformation is high. Little is known about the use of social media relating to HH management. This study aimed to assess current health information on popular social media platforms relating to HH management.

METHODOLOGY

Short-form videos from YouTube and TikTok relevant to HH management were identified from 2020-2024. Videos were screened against inclusion and exclusion criteria and for duplicates. The primary end points were a comparison of the videos’ consistency with CPG and DISCERN instrument scores (1 – serious/ extensive shortcomings to 5 – minimal shortcomings), between medical professionals and other content creators.

RESULTS

327 videos were screened and a total of 100 videos were included for analysis after removal of duplicates. Only 20% of videos were from medical professionals, all were consistent with CPG (100% vs 18.8%, p<0.01), when compared to non-medical professional sources. Videos from medical professionals had significantly higher mean DISCERN scores, though their quality was not high (2.50 vs 1.76, p<0.01). Overall, nearly two-thirds of videos were not consistent with CPG, and these videos had significantly higher median views and followers than those that were consistent.

CONCLUSION

The prevalence of misinformation relating to HH management on social media is high. Although medical professionals create videos that are consistent with clinical practice guidelines and of higher quality, videos spreading misinformation reach a far wider audience.