# Quality evaluation of health science popularization short videos related to cerebrovascular diseases on popular short video platforms in China: cross-sectional study

## TL;DR

This study evaluates the quality of health-related short videos about cerebrovascular diseases on TikTok and Kuaishou in China, finding that TikTok videos generally have higher quality and engagement.

## Contribution

The study introduces a comparative quality evaluation of health science popularization short videos on two major Chinese platforms using multiple assessment tools.

## Key findings

- TikTok videos had significantly higher engagement and quality scores compared to Kuaishou.
- Video duration strongly correlates with quality scores across multiple metrics.
- Random Forest models showed strong performance in predicting video quality scores.

## Abstract

Health science popularization short videos have become one of the main sources of acquiring disease-related information. However, the quality of such videos on popular short video platforms varies considerably. This study aims to evaluate the quality of the health science popularization short videos about cerebrovascular diseases on two popular short video platforms (TikTok and Kuaishou) in China.

Using Python web crawler, short videos related to cerebrovascular diseases were collected from TikTok and Kuaishou in China, posted from December 10th, 2023, to December 10th, 2024. Ultimately, 915 valid videos were included. Two clinical experts evaluated the quality of the included videos using GQS, mDISCERN, and PEMAT-A/V independently. The median (IQR) was used to describe the features of the short videos, and the Kruskal-Wallis test was used to evaluate the differences between groups. Correlation analysis and the Random Forest regression model were applied to investigate the correlation between the features and the quality score of short videos.

Health science popularization short videos related to cerebrovascular diseases on the TikTok platform showed significantly more likes, favorites, comments, and shares (p < 0.001). The videos on TikTok had a median score of 3 on mDISCERN, a median score of 3 on GQS, a median Understandability score of 65.38%, and a median Actionability score of 50%, all of which were significantly higher than those on Kuaishou. There were strong correlations between video duration and mDISCERN score (r = 0.219, p < 0.001), GQS (r = 0.495, p < 0.001), Understandability score (r = 0.282, p < 0.001), and Actionability score (r = 0.361, p < 0.001). The four Random Forest regression models for video quality scores demonstrated favorable fitting performance, with R2 values ranging from 0.862 to 0.903.

Health science popularization short videos related to cerebrovascular diseases on TikTok and Kuaishou showed a moderate quality, and the quality of the health science popularization short videos on TikTok was better than those on Kuaishou. Video duration was a key determinant of video quality.