An Evaluation of Educational Neurological Eye Movement Disorder Videos Posted on Internet Video Sharing Sites

Background:Internet video sharing sites allow the free dissemination of educational material. This study investigated the quality and educational content of videos of eye movement disorders posted on such sites.Methods:Educational neurological eye movement videos were identified by entering the titles of the eye movement abnormality into the search boxes of the video sharing sites. Also, suggested links were followed from each video. The number of views, likes, and dislikes for each video were recorded. The videos were then rated for their picture and sound quality. Their educational value was assessed according to whether the video included a description of the eye movement abnormality, the anatomical location of the lesion (if appropriate), and the underlying diagnosis.Results:Three hundred fifty-four of these videos were found on YouTube and Vimeo. There was a mean of 6,443 views per video (range, 1-195,957). One hundred nineteen (33.6%) had no form of commentary about the eye movement disorder shown apart from the title. Forty-seven (13.3%) contained errors in the title or in the text. Eighty (22.6%) had excellent educational value by describing the eye movement abnormality, the anatomical location of the lesion, and the underlying diagnosis. Of these, 30 also had good picture and sound quality. The videos with excellent educational value had a mean of 9.84 likes per video compared with 2.37 for those videos without a commentary (P < 0.001). The videos that combined excellent educational value with good picture and sound quality had a mean of 10.23 likes per video (P = 0.004 vs videos with no commentary). There was no significant difference in the mean number of dislikes between those videos that had no commentary or which contained errors and those with excellent educational value.Conclusions:There are a large number of eye movement videos freely available on these sites; however, due to the lack of peer review, a significant number have poor educational value due to having no commentary or containing errors. The number of likes can help to identify videos with excellent educational value but the number of dislikes does not help in discerning which videos have poor educational value.