(31) Is TikTok a Tool in an Oral Surgery Practice?

Abstract: TikTok is the fastest-growing social media platform to date and has become a major source of information for news, education, and medicine. With 80 million monthly active users in the U.S. averaging 95 minutes of use a day, it makes the social network a major contributor to the spread of information. Since users’ treatment decisions are easily guided by what influencers promote, this poses a challenge to healthcare professionals, who must be conscious of the spread of misinformation. The purpose of this study is to identify the presence and popularity of oral surgery content on the platform, to measure whether the information shared is useful for viewers, and if there are any differences in quality of the videos between author groups.
The investigators designed a cross-sectional analysis to evaluate oral surgery content on TikTok. Using internal search features, key terms “oral surgery” and “wisdom teeth” were queried within a 3-month period. Content quality was determined using the Global Quality Scale criteria. Additional variables studied were topic and popularity. Topic was categorized as educational or anecdotal. Popularity was measured by the number of likes accumulated. Content excluded were unrelated to oral surgery or dentistry, dictated in non-English, or not in video format.
Extrapolation of data and statistical analysis was performed using two-sample t-tests, which compared the GQS score of patient and physician published content. Statistical significance was achieved with a P-value < 0.05. Covariates were reported as a simple comparison between the two data sets. A total of 558 videos were found and 429 of them met study criteria. Patients created most of the content (68%), followed by physicians (31%), then other (1%). Most authors were patients (68%) and videos were mostly anecdotal (87%). Physician videos had greater popularity than patient videos. Physicians averaged 25,148 likes, patients averaged 2,109 likes, and other averaged 1,044 likes. All videos combined had a total of 3,942,819 likes. GQS score was greater in physician videos (GQS score 3.16) versus patient videos (GQS score 1.84) (P < 0.05) with a 95% confidence interval.
By looking at the number of unique videos published by each group and comparing the popularity of these videos, we were able to identify that although non-physicians had a greater presence on the social media platform, physicians had greater popularity among the audience. Physician-created videos scored a GQS of 3.16 which is interpreted to be of moderate quality, with more information discussed, and of some use for viewers. By comparing GQS scoring to popularity, we saw that physician videos, which had better quality also had greater popularity. It can be assumed that the content published by physicians is perceived well by the community and is a source of information that viewers are amenable to. However, only 39% of oral surgery videos by physicians were educational. This gap shows that there is room to expand oral surgery content to include information about procedures, indications, and scope of oral surgery to viewers.
This analysis has demonstrated the presence and popularity of oral surgery content on the platform. If surgeons focus on having a greater presence on social media and produce higher quality videos, it can improve patient knowledge by easing patient uncertainty, reducing misinformation, and improving patient satisfaction. Furthermore, social media platforms like this one can help the public gain insight into their upcoming procedure, disease, or provider.

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