Can YouTube be used as a source of information on femoroacetabular impingement exercises?

Background: Youtube is one of the most popular video-sharing websites, and people use Youtube as a source of medical information. However, the fact that YouTube content is uncontrolled raises doubts about the quality and reliability of the information presented. For this reason, it is important that video contents are examined by professionals in order to obtain accurate information.

Objective: To examine the content, reliability, and quality of YouTube videos linked to femoroacetabular impingement (FAI) exercises.  

Method: Videos selected from YouTube using the search terms ‘femoroacetabular impingement exercise’, ‘femoroacetabular impingement rehabilitation’, ‘femoroacetabular impingement physical therapy’, ‘femoroacetabular impingement physiotherapy’, ‘hip impingement exercise’, ‘hip impingement rehabilitation’, ‘hip impingement physical therapy’, and ‘hip impingement physiotherapy’ were categorized as useful or misleading two physiotherapists. The videos were analyzed using the 10-item scale for comprehensiveness, the 5-point mDISCERN scale for reliability, and the Global Quality Scale for quality.

Results: The contents of the 74 videos in the research were analyzed, it was found that 26 of them supplied useful information and 48 included misleading information. The useful videos had statistically higher means comprehensiveness, DISCERN, and GQS scores than the misleading videos (p < 0.05). According to the video sources, 65.4% of the useful videos were published by physiotherapists.

Conclusion: In this study, it was noted that the most of YouTube videos on FAI exercises were misleading videos. Health professionals (physiotherapists, physicians, etc.) should be motivated to create more videos that provide comprehensive and correct information on this topic.