HIV videos on YouTube: helpful or harmful?

Social media is an often-used source of information regarding HIV/AIDS.1 YouTube is the most popular video sharing site on the internet, which allows users to share unregulated medical information. Given the popularity and the potential to influence the general public behaviour of this website, the spread misleading content could be dangerous.2 However, to date, the content of HIV-related videos on YouTube has not been analysed. The purpose of this descriptive study was to address this need by conducting a content analysis of the most widely viewed YouTube videos addressing HIV. A YouTube search was conducted using the keyword ‘HIV’. Out of the 1 600 000 results, the 150 most viewed videos were analysed independently by three investigators and a fourth researcher arbitrated any discrepancies. The videos were categorised as ‘useful’, ‘misleading’ or ‘no information’. The videos were watched a total of 25 290 251 times and the number of...
Source: Sexually Transmitted Infections - Category: Sexual Medicine Authors: Tags: Miscellaneous Source Type: research