There are many frequently asked questions (FAQs) about kidney transplant that may not be answered by visits to the transplant center. Not all patients have equal access to healthcare professionals and may look to other sources to find answers, the major source being the internet. Youtube is one of the most popular video sharing sites in the world and millions of people use Youtube daily. We sought to determine how well Youtube does at answering FAQ's about kidney transplant.

Methods: The top 200 Youtube videos under the label of kidney transplant were selected. We excluded videos that were in languages other than English, were over 20 minutes or duplicates. We then identified the top 10 FAQ's about kidney transplant that ranged from listing to the procedure as well as life after transplant. We looked to see the source of the videos, the number of views and the percentage of FAQ's that the videos answered.Results:Of the 20 top played Youtube videos, 55 met our criteria. Out of these 55, 25 were self made videos, 15 were hospital made and 15 were news sources. The average number of views was 29,085 (range 115-137,891). Self/patient made videos had the fewest views. Of the ten FAQ's, the question answered most often was about the transplant procedure itself (45% of the time) followed by who qualifies for a transplant (31%), kidney donors (31%) and post transplant lifestyle (27%). The other questions were answered infrequently ranging from 2-16% of the time.No video answered all questions. Most videos (60%) answered 1-2 FAQ's, 40% answered between 3-5 and no video answered 6 FAQ's. In conclusion, Youtube vidoes is a poor source of information regarding the kidney transplant process. This may present an opportunity to create a video that provided more thorough information about transplant.

CITATION INFORMATION: Sheiner P, Silver S. Evaluating Online Information on Youtube for Kidney Transplant. Am J Transplant. 2017;17 (suppl 3).

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