Evaluating the Usefulness of Online Food Poisoning Videos

We extracted information on the title, length of the video (in minutes), total views, days since upload, likes and dislikes. Calculations of views/day were performed. The videos was further divided into four categories [16 (link), 17 (link)]: Education; Entertainment; News & Politics; People & Blogs. More specifically, medical courses or other academic videos were divided into “Education”; comedies and talk shows were divided into “Entertainment”; videos form government agencies and news reports about food poisoning incidents or outbreaks were divided into “News & Politics”; videos depicting personal food poisoning experiences or videos showing personal opinions about food poisoning were divided into “personal & blogs”. For example, a video describing the difference between a stomach flu and food poisoning (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EC7UaLIAEP4) was divided into “Education”.
A customized usefulness scoring scheme was created where scores were given for video quality and specific content. The Global Quality Scale (GQS) [18 (link)] was used to assess the overall quality of all selected videos. As shown in Table 1, GQS was a five-point Likert scale based on the quality of information, the flow and ease of use of the information present online. Seven content-specific items were also developed to assess whether videos discussed risk factors, epidemiology, etiology, symptoms, diagnosis, treatment and prevention of food poisoning. According to the video details of each item, the video was given 0 point (Not mentioned), 1 point (Briefly introduced) and 2 points (Introduced in detail). The total usefulness score is the sum of the GQS score and content score. According to the total score, the videos was categorized as slightly useful (1–6), useful (7–13), very useful (14–19).Table 1

Global Quality Scale Criteria Used to Score Videos Containing Information About Food Poisoning

Score	Global Score Description
1	Poor quality, poor flow of the site, most information missing, not at all useful for patients
2	Generally poor quality and poor flow, some information listed but many important topics missing, of very limited use to patients
3	Moderate quality, suboptimal flow, some important information is adequately discussed but others poorly discussed, somewhat useful for patients
4	Good quality and generally good flow, most of the relevant information is listed, but some topics not covered, useful for patients
5	Excellent quality and excellent flow, very useful for patients

Each video was scored by two independent viewers (M. Li, S.M. Yan) who were knowledgeable in the risk factors, epidemiology, etiology, symptoms, diagnosis, treatment and prevention of food poisoning. If the content scores or GQS scores given by two viewers differ by three or more points, then the final score is given by an arbitrator (W.W. Cui). In addition to the scores given by the arbitrator, the scores given by the two viewers were then averaged to give an overall score that was used for final results and statistical analysis.