Plastic surgery videos on YouTube may be grossly inaccurate, says a new study. The researchers warn that most of the videos are misleading marketing campaigns posted by non-qualified medical professionals.
Do you turn to YouTube for advice on cosmetic surgery procedures? Beware, most of these are misleading marketing campaigns posted by non-qualified medical professionals, researchers have warned. Researchers at the Rutgers University found that the millions of people who turn to YouTube as a source for education on facial plastic surgery receive a false understanding that does not include the risks of alternative options.
“Videos on facial plastic surgery may be mainly marketing campaigns and may not fully be intended as educational,” said lead author Boris Paskhover, Assistant Professor at the varsity. For the study, the team evaluated 240 top-viewed videos with 160 million combined views that resulted from keyword searches for ‘blepharoplasty’, ‘eyelid surgery’, ‘dermal fillers’, ‘facial fillers’, ‘otoplasty’, ‘ear surgery’, ‘rhytidectomy’, ‘facelift’, ‘lip augmentation’, ‘lip fillers’, “rhinoplasty’ and/or ‘nose job’.