Assessing the Quality of Social Media Content Regarding Facial Paralysis and Reanimation.

Patients frequently use social media to direct their health care. However, the quality of social media posts regarding facial paralysis and reanimation is unclear. To assess the quality of facial reanimation posts on social media. Ten key search terms were used to search YouTube and Facebook. The top 10 posts for each search term were graded using a variety of parameters including the Global Quality Score (GQS), Modified DISCERN, Journal of the American Medical Association Criteria, and a novel Social Media Quality Score (SMQS) which was created by the authors. There was a significant difference in SMQS ( = .035) and GQS ( = .01) between YouTube and Facebook Videos. For YouTube videos, there was a significant difference in SMQS scores ( = .003) between various search terms. For Facebook videos, there was a significant difference in both SMQS ( < .0001) and Modified DISCERN ( = .036) scores. The majority of videos evaluated were of moderate or low quality. Higher quality posts regarding facial reanimation are needed on social media. As health care providers, we must provide patients with appropriate resources to find high-quality posts, and when posting content, we must carefully curate the "key words" so that patients can easily find high-quality content.