Informational value and bias of videos related to orthodontics screened on a video-sharing Web site

Objective: To assess the informational value, intention, source, and bias of videos related to orthodontics screened by the video-sharing Internet platform You Tube. Methods: You Tube (www.youtube.com) was scanned in July 2010 for orthodontics-related videos using an adequately defined search term. Each of the first 30 search results of the scan was categorized with the system-generated sorts "by relevance" and "most viewed" (total: 60). These were rated independently by three assessors, who completed a questionnaire for each video. The data were analyzed statistically using Friedman's test for dependent samples, Kendall's tau, and Fleiss's kappa. Results: The You Tube scan produced 5140 results. There was a wide variety of information about orthodontics available on You Tube, and the highest proportion of videos was found to originate from orthodontic patients. These videos were also the most viewed ones. The informational content of most of the videos was generally judged to be low, with a rather poor to inadequate representation of the orthodontic profession, although a moderately pro-orthodontics stance prevailed. It was noticeable that the majority of contributions of orthodontists to You Tube constituted advertising. This tendency was not viewed positively by the majority of You Tube users, as was evident in the divergence in the proportions when sorting by "relevance" and "most viewed." Conclusion: In the light of the very large number of people using the Internet as their primary source of information, orthodontists should recognize the importance of You Tube and similar social media Web sites in the opinion-forming process, especially in the case of adolescents. (Angle Orthod. 2011;81:532-539.)