Assessing the Reliability and Validity of Principles for Health-Related Information on Social Media (PRHISM) for Evaluating Breast Cancer Treatment Videos on YouTube: Instrument Validation Study.

BACKGROUND

There is breast cancer-related medical information on social media, but there is no established method for objectively evaluating the quality of this information. Principles for Health-Related Information on Social Media (PRHISM) is a newly developed tool for objectively assessing the quality of health-related information on social media; however, there have been no reports evaluating its reliability and validity.

OBJECTIVE

The purpose of this study was to statistically examine the reliability and validity of PRHISM using videos about breast cancer treatment on YouTube (Google).

METHODS

In total, 60 YouTube videos were selected on January 5, 2024, with the Japanese words for "breast cancer," "treatment," and "chemotherapy," and assessed by 6 Japanese physicians with expertise in breast cancer. These evaluators independently evaluated the videos using PRHISM and an established tool for assessing the quality of health-related information, DISCERN, as well as through subjective assessments. We calculated interrater and intrarater agreement among evaluators with CIs, measuring agreement using weighted Cohen kappa.

RESULTS

The interrater agreement for PRHISM overall quality was κ=0.52 (90% CI 0.49-0.55), indicating that the expected level of agreement, statistically defined by the lower limit of the 90% CI exceeding 0.53, was not achieved. However, PRHISM demonstrated higher agreement compared with DISCERN overall quality, which had a κ=0.45 (90% CI 0.41-0.48). In terms of validity, the intrarater agreement between PRHISM and subjective assessments by breast experts was κ=0.37 (95% CI 0.14-0.60), while DISCERN showed an agreement of κ=0.27 (95% CI 0.07-0.48), indicating fair agreement and no significant difference in validity.

CONCLUSIONS

PRHISM has demonstrated sufficient reliability and validity for evaluating the quality of health-related information on YouTube, making it a promising new metric. To further enhance objectivity, it is necessary to explore the use of artificial intelligence and other approaches.