Assessment of information quality and reliability of short videos related to lumbar disc herniation on selected video platforms

Background: Lumbar disc herniation is a common chronic condition among working people. In China, the number of popular scientific videos on health and disease knowledge is increasing on short video platforms, but there is still a lack of sufficient research to evaluate the quality of these short videos. The main objective of this study was to evaluate the quality, reliability, and content completeness of lumbar disc herniation related videos posted on four major short video platforms in China. Methods: The keyword "lumbar disc herniation" was entered into four major Chinese short video platforms; videos were sorted by the number of likes, and the top 100 were collected. After sifting through the collected videos, their quality was assessed using the Global Quality Score (GQS), DISCERN tool, and content completeness score. Results: A total of 400 videos were collected from four short video platforms, Douyin, Bilibili, Kuaishou, and Xiaohongshu, leaving 384 videos after screening. The largest group of uploaders was orthopedic surgeons (24.2%), while the smallest was organizations (2.6%). For short video content, the most frequently mentioned content was treatment (83.9%), followed by diagnosis (14.8%). The average number of likes for each video was 25,998. The mean GQS score, DISCERN score and content completeness score of these videos were 2 ± 0.85, 1.71 ± 0.76, and 1.38 ± 0.76. There was little difference in content completeness among the platforms, but Douyin had higher video quality scores. Conclusions: In summary, the overall quality scores of lumbar disc herniation-related short videos were not high. Short video quality on Douyin was higher than that of other platforms. The quality of videos posted by orthopedic surgeons was better than that posted by other groups. Short videos with a high number of likes tend to have higher GQS and DISCERN scores.