YouTube as a Source for Arabic-Speaking Parent Education on the Oral Hygiene of Children: A Social Media Content Analysis.
Maram Ali M Alwadi, AlBandary Hassan AlJameel, Munirah Mohammed A Alaskar and 4 others
PMID 40109224WHAT IT FOUND
Most Arabic-language YouTube videos on child tooth brushing scored moderate total quality, but had poor reliability and low overall quality.
Creator credentials did not guarantee quality, so nurses should vet videos before sharing them.
Key findings
01Forty-seven Arabic-language YouTube videos on child oral hygiene were analysed; 70.2% had low overall quality and 63.8% had low reliability.
02Even among 18 videos made by pediatric dentists, 66.7% had low reliability and 72.2% had low overall quality.
03Video source was not significantly associated with total score, reliability, information quality, or overall quality.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The study analysed only Arabic-language YouTube videos found in December 2023, so it may not apply to other languages, regions, or newer videos. Only the top 100 results for each search term were screened, and several exclusion rules removed videos, so the sample may not represent all available content. Quality ratings depended on three reviewers using DISCERN, and the authors note that this subjective tool could introduce bias. The study did not test whether parents watched the videos, understood them, or changed tooth brushing behaviour, and it had no comparison group. Most videos came from Egypt (28 of 47), so the findings may reflect one country's content more than the whole Arabic-speaking region.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that a pediatric dentist's video, a popular video, or a video with many likes is reliable for teaching parents child tooth brushing. In this analysis, pediatric dentist videos were mostly low reliability and low overall quality, and creator source was not significantly associated with quality scores.