title: Learning electrocardiogram on YouTube: how useful is it?
abstract: BACKGROUND
  YouTube has become a useful resource for knowledge and is widely used by medical students as an e-learning source. The purpose of this study was to assess the videos relating electrocardiogram (ECG) on YouTube.
  
  
  METHODS
  YouTube was searched on May 28, 2013 for the search terms "AF ecg" for atrial fibrillation, "AVNRT" for atrioventricular nodal reentrant tachycardia, "AVRT" for atrioventricular reentrant tachycardia, "AV block or heart block" for atrioventricular block, "LBBB, RBBB" for bundle branch block, "left anterior fascicular block or left posterior fascicular block" for fascicular blocks, "VT ecg" for ventricular tachycardia, "long QT" and "Brugada ecg". Non-English language, unrelated and non-educational videos were excluded. Remaining videos were assessed for usefulness, source and characteristics. Usefulness was assessed with using a checklist developed by the authors.
  
  
  RESULTS
  One hundred nineteen videos were included in the analysis. Sources of the videos were as follows: individuals n=70, 58.8%, universities/hospitals n=10, 8.4% and medical organizations n=3, 2.5%, health ads n=10 8.4%, health websites n=26, 21.8%. Fifty-six (47.1%) videos were classified as very useful and 16 (13.4%) videos were misleading. 90% of the videos uploaded by universities/hospitals were grouped as very useful videos, the same ratio was 45% for the individual uploads. There were statistically significant differences in ECG diagnosis among the groups (for very useful, useful and misleading, p<0.001, 0.02 and 0.008, respectively). The ratio of the misleading information in ventricular tachycardia videos was found to be 42.9%.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  YouTube has a substantial amount of videos on ECG with a wide diversity from useful to misleading content. The lack of quality content relating to ECG on YouTube necessitates that videos should be selected with utmost care.
authors.affiliation: Kartal Kosuyolu Heart and Research Hospital. Electronic address: taylan_akgun@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Taylan
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Akgun
authors.affiliation: Kartal Kosuyolu Heart and Research Hospital.
authors.forename: Can Yucel
authors.initials: CY
authors.lastname: Karabay
authors.affiliation: Kartal Kosuyolu Heart and Research Hospital.
authors.forename: Gonenc
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Kocabay
authors.affiliation: Kartal Kosuyolu Heart and Research Hospital.
authors.forename: Arzu
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kalayci
authors.affiliation: Kartal Kosuyolu Heart and Research Hospital.
authors.forename: Vecih
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Oduncu
authors.affiliation: Kartal Kosuyolu Heart and Research Hospital.
authors.forename: Ahmet
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Guler
authors.affiliation: Kartal Kosuyolu Heart and Research Hospital.
authors.forename: Selcuk
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Pala
authors.affiliation: Kartal Kosuyolu Heart and Research Hospital.
authors.forename: Cevat
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Kirma
mesh_terms: D001145:Arrhythmias, Cardiac / Q000175:diagnosis*; D003194:Computer-Assisted Instruction / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D004521:Educational Measurement / Q000379:methods / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D004562:Electrocardiography / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012984:Software; D014584:User-Computer Interface
keywords: Electrocardiography; Internet; Medical information; YouTube