Review for 10.1186/s12876-025-04005-8 (2025)

Title: Status of Short Videos as Health Information Sources for Chronic Pancreatitis in China:
A Cross-sectional Study
Version: 1 Date: 05 Apr 2025
Reviewer's report:
The authors reviewed and qualified the short videos on chronic pancreatitis  available in
China. These short videos could play positive role in the education of the patients, giving them
information about the principal aspects of the disease, the possibilities of the treatment and
- maybe first of all - the imperative need for behaviour modifications, the only way for the
patient to ameliorate their clinical evolution, quality of life and achieve a better prognosis.
The evaluation of the videos by the authors showed in general a low quality of content.  They
concluded in lines 363-65:  “we suggest that medical and health professionals, especially
gastroenterologists and pancreatic surgeons, should actively participate in the production of
health education videos” – it is a correct conclusion, important to take it in consideration.
The subject of the paper is interesting, the evaluation is the most detailed and tries to be  as
objective as possible. However, the paper is too long ( 3474 words) and the results are difficult
to interpret for the rest of the world.
Questions, comments and criticism:
Lines 134-36 “Patients or the public did not participate in the design, implementation, reporting,
or dissemination plans of our study.”  However, the videos are directed to the general public,
to the patients suffering CP. It would be informative to evaluate the difference between experts
and the general public, as concerns the clarity and value of the information.
Fig.2. “…among residents, attending physicians, associate chief physicians, and chief
physicians; “  I cannot identify this figure, probably lacking
“Nonhealth” professionals in the text and figure legend, but “non-health” professionals on the
same figure.
Lines 222-23 “In terms of treatment, videos from other specialists were the most comprehensive,
followed by those from pancreatic surgeons” – it is really sad, if the videos performed by
gastroenterologists were less comprehensive than those made by other specialists
Lines 227-30 “science bloggers provided longer videos (median: 217.5 vs. 184.5, p=0.586) and
garnered more likes (median: 597 vs. 1093.5, p=0.164), shares (median: 82 vs. 41, p=0.248), and
favorites (median: 244.5 vs. 294, p=0.225) than other sources did” – none of these differences
was significative, p-values are relatively high. In addition, “more likes” values are inverted. The
same is true in the case of gastroenterologists compared to others: none of p-values is <0.05
Lines 236-42 “behavioral therapy”: It would be the most important aspect of these short videos.
They could be useful in providing information to the patients about the beneficial effect of no
alcohol and tobacco consumption, and the majority of videos, even high proportion made by
specialists, fail in this task.
Lines 350-51 “videos provided by popular science bloggers perform poorly in terms of quality
and reliability” – It is not surprising at all. Unfortunately, we cannot protect our patients against
these “fake”informations frequently without any scientific bases.