Is YouTube a reliable source of health-related information? A systematic review

YouTube is a valuable source of health-related educational material which can have a profound impact on people's behaviors and decisions. However, YouTube contains a wide variety of unverified content that may promote unhealthy behaviors and activities. We aim in this systematic review to provide insight into the published literature concerning the quality of health information and educational videos found on YouTube.

We searched Google Scholar, Medline (through PubMed), EMBASE, Scopus, Direct Science, Web of Science, and ProQuest databases to find all papers on the analysis of medical and health-related content published in English up to August 2020. Based on eligibility criteria, 202 papers were included in our study. We reviewed every article and extracted relevant data such as the number of videos and assessors, the number and type of quality categories, and the recommendations made by the authors. The extracted data from the papers were aggregated using different methods to compile the results.