Epinephrine Auto-injector Use on YouTube: Is It Really Useful?

Abstract

Aim: Epinephrine is the best treatment for anaphylaxis and gives the best results if given within the first few minutes of a severe allergic reaction. An auto-injector is used by the patient or her/his relatives when the reaction happens. The Internet can be useful in the education of these individuals as much as the education provided by the experts in this field. To the best of our knowledge, there is no study about epinephrine videos on YouTube. In our study, we aimed to evaluate the accuracy of YouTube videos on the use of epinephrine auto-injector and their compliance to guidelines. Materials and Methods: In order to analyze the quality and compliance of YouTube videos on auto-injectors, the term 'using epinephrine auto-injectors for anaphylaxis" was searched at YouTube in January 2015. The videos were then scored from 1 to 10 for reliability. Results: Of the 610 videos in our study, 210 were about epinephrine auto-injectors. It was found that there was a significant relationship between reliability and uploader, upload date, video length and application model (p<0.05), but there was no significant relationship between reliability and the number of views (p=0.885). Conclusion: In conclusion, we postulated that the social network is very efficacious in terms of medical education. In order to prevent misinformation of the community, videos should be shared by relevant authorities or physicians on social networks like YouTube.