VCOM Louisiana Research Day Program

COVID-19 & Epidemiology

Roxana Garcia, MD, MPH; Yue Meng, MD; Chantal Nguyen, MD; Anhkim Pho, OMS-III, BA; Gabriel Lopez, MS-II, BS; Luis Valdez, MS-IV, BS; Youshaa El-Abed, MS-II, BS Stanford Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation 39 ANALYSIS OF LONG COVID CONTENT ON YOUTUBE AND TIKTOK: A CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY

Context: Post-acute COVID syndrome, colloquially referred to as Long COVID, is a complex and prevalent syndrome that have impacted millions of individuals worldwide who have recovered from acute COVID infection but are left with the sequela of unexplained symptoms, oftentimes with no end in sight. As this disease is novel and new information is being discovered rapidly, patients may utilize social media to learn about Long COVID and to seek directions in navigating through the illness. However, social media content is not always peer-reviewed or verified by an expert in healthcare. Therefore, this study aims to evaluate characteristics, reliability, and quality of videos on YouTube and TikTok related to Long COVID. Objective/Hypothesis: This study aims to evaluate characteristics of Long COVID information posted on YouTube and TikTok and to compare the quality and reliability of the content between the two platforms by analyzing them using the modified DISCERN (mDISCERN) scale. Methods: The hashtag “LongCovid” was used to perform a search of the top 100 most viewed videos on each platform. Characteristics of each video were collected, including creator type,

video duration, video age, and the number of views. Two independent trained raters assessed the quality and reliability of each video by rating it using the mDISCERN scale. Anticipated Results: Most videos on both YouTube and TikTok focus on Long COVID symptoms. Preliminary data also suggest that content related to Long COVID on YouTube may be more accurate and reliable than that on TikTok. Additionally, videos made by healthcare institutions and professionals have higher quality and reliability. Conclusions: Online videos on Long COVID have a wide range of quality across the social media platforms YouTube and TikTok. Greater care should be taken by the general public when following advice posted on a video on social media. Healthcare professionals should create high quality videos to disseminate valuable information. Future studies should be directed towards improving the quality and accuracy of health information

53 2023 Via Research Recognition Day