Quality, Reliability, and Dissemination of In Vitro Fertilization–Related Videos on Chinese Social Media: Cross-Sectional Analysis of 300 Short Videos
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background: Patients increasingly rely on short-video platforms for information regarding in vitro fertilization (IVF), yet the relationship between the scientific quality of this content and its algorithmic dissemination remains unclear. Objective: This study aimed to assess the quality, reliability, and key drivers of dissemination of IVF-related short videos on major Chinese social media platforms. Methods: A cross-sectional content analysis was conducted on 300 popular IVF-related videos (the top 100 results from each platform) retrieved from Douyin, Bilibili, and Xiaohongshu between January 10 and 15, 2025. Video quality and reliability were evaluated using the Global Quality Score and a modified DISCERN instrument. Predictors of video dissemination were identified using an Extreme Gradient Boosting machine learning model, with the number of "likes" serving as the primary outcome variable. Results: Content produced by medical professionals demonstrated significantly higher quality and reliability (median mDISCERN 11.0, IQR 9.0-15.0) compared to non-medical sources (median mDISCERN 8.0, IQR 5.0-13.0; P< .001). However, the Extreme Gradient Boosting analysis identified the uploader's follower count as the most powerful predictor of video "likes." In contrast, quality metrics (Global Quality Score and modified DISCERN scores) had a negligible impact on dissemination. Conclusions: In the current Chinese social media landscape, the dissemination of IVF-related videos is strongly associated with creator influence rather than scientific merit. This disconnect between engagement and quality poses a potential risk of misinformation, highlighting the need for medical professionals to adopt platform-native communication strategies to ensure that high-quality information reaches patients.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.006 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".