Work

Assessing the usefulness of educational videos on endodontic irrigation for dental students: a pilot study

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: BACKGROUND: This research aimed to assess the usefulness of existing YouTube videos on endodontic irrigation, published between January 2013 and December 2022, as a learning resource for dental undergraduate students. Additionally, the study evaluated the educational value of these videos about factors such as video duration, authorship source, and view count. METHODS: YouTube searches for videos related to endodontic irrigation were conducted using search terms such as "irrigation protocol" and "endodontic irrigation." After screening, ninety-six videos were selected and assessed based on factors such as days since upload, video duration, number of views and likes, authorship source, and viewing rate. A set of six parameters was established to evaluate the educational value of the videos, with each element being assigned a score of 0 or 1. Statistical analyses were performed using the Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney tests, with a significant level of 5%. RESULTS: The videos received an average of 4,474.76 views, 38.67 likes, a 290.5% viewing rate, and a video length of 161.15 s. The mean usefulness score was 3.89, with the most discussed elements being demonstration, description, and equipment/apparatus. The majority of videos were from healthcare professionals (n = 73, 76.04%) or commercial sources (n = 22, 22.92%). Twenty-seven videos were classified as highly useful, sixty-one as moderately useful, and eight as low usefulness. Among the content usefulness categories, the highly useful videos had the shortest length (mean = 158.93s), while the moderately useful videos had the highest viewing rate. Videos uploaded by different authorship sources showed minimal statistical significance in content usefulness. CONCLUSIONS: The usefulness of endodontic irrigation videos on YouTube has low educational value, and the available data to assess their effectiveness as a learning tool for undergraduate students is inconclusive.

Source: BMC Medical Education

DOI: 10.1186/s12909-025-07647-0

Authors: Jin Wey Kock, Shahmin Kar Sze Yeap, Naveen Chhabra, Philip Yuan-Ho Chien, Shekhar Bhatia

Institutions: IMU University, The University of Queensland

Language: English

Topic: Social Media in Health Education

Subfield: Health

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Quality education

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $2,990