ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Health Education and Promotion
Quality and Reliability of Chinese Short Videos on TikTok Related to Chronic Renal Failure: Cross-Sectional Study
Provisionally accepted
- 1Department of Information, Army Medical Center of PLA, Chongqing, China
- 2Department of Quality Management, Army Medical Center of PLA, Chongqing, China
- 3Chongqing Medical University School of Medical Information, Chongqing, China
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Background: Chronic renal failure is projected to be one of the fastest-growing causes of death among non-communicable diseases by 2040. TikTok has emerged as a major platform for disseminating health-related videos. However, the reliability and quality of Chinese videos related to chronic renal failure on TikTok remain unclear. We systematically searched and screened videos related to chronic renal failure from the Chinese version of TikTok. Two independent raters assessed the reliability and quality of the videos using two validated evaluation tools: the DISCERN instrument and the Global Quality Score (GQS). Moreover, the correlation between the reliability and quality of the videos and their characteristics (duration, likes, comments, shares, number of followers) was further investigated. Results: After searching and screening, a total of 78 eligible videos were ultimately included for analysis. According to their sources, 94.87% were uploaded by medical professionals. The median DISCERN and GQS scores were 39 (IQR 37–46.25) and 3 (IQR 2.75–4), respectively, indicating that videos related to chronic renal failure on TikTok were unreliable and of mediocre quality, mainly at poor (42.31%) and moderate (44.87%) categories. The reliability and quality of the videos were positively correlated with video duration (r = 0.384, P = .001; r = 0.469, P < .01) and showed no statistically significant correlation with popularity or number of followers. Consequently, due to their unreliability and low quality, these Chinese videos related to chronic renal failure on TikTok cannot provide patients with accurate assessments and are unsuitable as a source of medical knowledge.
Keywords: chronic renal failure, TikTok, Video quality, DISCERN tool, Global quality score, Content Analysis, Online health information, Health information quality
Received: 23 Jun 2025; Accepted: 24 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wang, Tan, Wu and Huang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Cheng Huang, huangcheng@cqmu.edu.cn
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