Introduction
Vertigo is generally defined as the sensation of self or environmental
motion [1]. Patients and many physicians tend to use the terms
dizziness and vertigo interchangeably, however, dizziness is divided
into subgroups and vertigo constitutes approximately 54% of cases of
dizziness [2, 3]. It is estimated that approximately 20-30% of the
general population has vertigo symptoms during their lifetime, and the
annual prevalence is around 4.9% [1]. Vertigo occurs as a result of
dysfunction at any level of the vestibular system and is classified as
peripheral and central according to the level of this dysfunction. The
most common diseases causing vertigo are benign paroxysmal positional
vertigo, vestibular neuronitis and Meniere’s disease. Although the most
common causes of vertigo are usually benign, vertigo may occur in more
serious cases such as cerebrovascular accidents, multiple sclerosis and
tumors [3].
With the development and spread of the internet and social media, health
information is now more accessible to patients [4]. In a survey
conducted in United Kingdom, it was stated that 73% of internet users
had looked up health information online at least once [5]. 75% of
patients with chronic illnesses in the US stated that information
obtained online affected their decision-making process [5]. However,
considering that not every information on the internet is added by
experts and that there may be false information, patients are likely to
be affected by this information both positively and negatively.
YouTube is a free video broadcast platform, and it has become the second
most visited website in the world with billions of views daily and over
2 billion viewers per month [6, 7]. YouTube is a huge platform where
videos about almost everything can be found. These videos include
medical information uploaded by experts as well as their own treatment
experiences uploaded by patients. As the use of YouTube has become
popular in medicine, the quality of YouTube content has been assessed in
several studies [8-10]. These studies’ results are important in
terms of revealing the level of information that patients acquire about
a particular subject.
To our knowledge, this is the first study that evaluates the content of
YouTube videos on vertigo. In this study, we aimed to analyze the
content and quality of YouTube videos related to vertigo, which is so
common and can sometimes be a harbinger of serious diseases.