YouTube as a source of premature ejaculation.

INTRODUCTION AND

OBJECTIVES

To evaluate the quality of information in You Tube videos pertaining to premature ejaculation.

MATERIALS AND

METHODS

A search for "premature ejaculation" (PE) was performed on You Tube in August 2018. Two senior urologist viewers watched and categorized each video for their sources, suggestions and information contents (excellent, fair or poor).

RESULTS

Of the three hundred videos viewed on You Tube, 155 videos were included and analyzed. Mean video length (mean±standard deviation) was 3.08±2.02min. The information content was excellent only in 17 (10.9%) of all videos while for a majority of them it was poor (57.4% n=89). Fair videos constituted 31.7% (n=49) of the videos. There was no relation between the trustworthiness of the videos' contents and either their viewings or ratings (p=0.561, p=0.0966, respectively). Videos uploaded by health professionals were more reliable than those uploaded by laypersons (p<0.001).

CONCLUSIONS

The study suggests that although some videos, especially those uploaded by healthcare professionals, are useful; the majority of them have misleading information. Therefore, they are not a reliable source of PE information for patients. It is incumbent on urologists to counsel patients for other available useful internet information sources on PE.