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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Digital Public Health
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1542278
Assessing the Quality of Educational Short Videos on Dry Eye Care: A Cross-Sectional Study
Provisionally accepted
Mingxue Huang 1
Jiaoman Wang 2
WEI Jiawen 1
Zhang Rongkui 2
Xiaoyan Wang 1
Jinhua Gan 3*
Zhe Zhang 2*
Fangyan Liu 2*- 1 Southwest Medical University, Luzhou, China
- 2 Shenzhen Eye Hospital, Shenzhen, China
- 3 The Affiliated Hospital of Southwest Medical University, Luzhou, Sichuan, China
Short video social media platforms play a crucial role in public health by effectively disseminating health information. Despite this, many educational videos on dry eye care have not received sufficient attention. This study aimed to conduct a comprehensive analysis and evaluate the quality of educational short videos on dry eye care available on TikTok.On August 30, 2024, the top 200 videos related to dry eye were viewed from the Chinese version of TikTok using the platform's default ranking. The overall quality, reliability, comprehensibility, and applicability of the videos are systematically evaluated using the DISCERN and PEMAT-A/V assessment tools.A total of 199 videos were included in the study and categorized based on account information: medical professional individual users, general professional individual users, for-profit organizations, non-profit organizations, and news organizations. Medical professionals were the predominant uploaders, contributing 81% of the videos. The overall misinformation rate was 2%. A majority of the videos (85.9%) addressed at least two aspects of dry eye, while only 14.1% covered three or more topics. The videos scored 22.4±6.4 for reliability and 17.4± 6.2 for treatment options. Upon evaluation, the understandability and actionability of these videos were found to be 79.1% and 60.4%, respectively.TikTok holds significant potential for disseminating health information, primarily through content created by medical professionals. Currently, much of the content focuses on the symptoms and management of dry eye, with limited discussion on its definition, classification, and diagnosis. While most video content is reliable, there is a risk of incomplete or inaccurate information, these videos can serve as a reference. Therefore, the public should exercise caution when seeking information on dry eye through TikTok and individuals experiencing symptoms are advised to consult healthcare professionals for accurate diagnosis and treatment.
Keywords: dry eye, care, Short video, Social Media, quality, Education
Received: 09 Dec 2024; Accepted: 21 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Huang, Wang, Jiawen, Rongkui, Wang, Gan, Zhang and Liu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Jinhua Gan, The Affiliated Hospital of Southwest Medical University, Luzhou, 646000, Sichuan, China
Zhe Zhang, Shenzhen Eye Hospital, Shenzhen, 518040, China
Fangyan Liu, Shenzhen Eye Hospital, Shenzhen, 518040, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.