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.