A content analysis of Arabic YouTube videos for cancer treatment Ajayeb S. Abu Daabes Emirates College of Technology, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, and Faten F. Kharbat College of Engineering, Al Ain University of Science and Technology, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe and assess Arabic videos related to cancer treatment to gain insights about the nature of health information as it is shared on YouTube. Accordingly, future strategies for different bodies are suggested to promote effective communication. Design/methodology/approach – The approach is to select a representative sample of YouTube videos for certain search terms related to cancer treatment in the Arabic language. In order to identify the search terms, Google Trends is utilized. To retrieve the most relevant videos, a simple python tool is developed using YouTube API V3. For this study, the first 150 relevant videos are quantitatively and qualitatively analyzed. Objective data and subjective data are collected for each video and analyzed. Objective data include video title, URL, length, view count, like count, dislike count, comment count and the associated tags. For content analysis, coding themes are defined for the subjective data as follows: video format, video authorship and video content. Video content includes three categories: types of treatments, targeted part and evidence-based indicators. Findings – The study included 150 videos, from which 30 videos were not content related; therefore, 120 videos remain in the analysis. Using rounding values, it can be observed that the average video lasted 10 min, had 184,966 views, was commented on 263 times, was liked by 2,295 users and disliked by 148 users. Non-professional individuals (46 percent) posted less than half of the videos, whereas public institutions posted only 18 percent of videos. More than half of videos (56 percent) promoted using herbal, botanical, and other natural products for cancer treatment. The majority of YouTube video formats were videos (52 percent), followed by audio with captions (30 percent). News and stories were the dominant videos, with (16 percent), and other types of videos were mostly testimonials and private centers promotions. Only 6 and 9 percent of videos targeted the genetic and immune systems, respectively. Out of the 120 analyzed videos, 86 percent did not mention any risk factor for the recommended treatment, and 73 percent did not offer the details of their usage direction. Research limitations/implications – Researchers need to understand the information that is currently available on social media platforms related to the high-risk diseases in order to design initiatives, tools, and actions to allow an easy effective transfer of knowledge. Practical implications – Recounting in-depth knowledge of YouTube cancer treatment contents will allow policy makers, YouTube management, medical organizations, and government agencies to understand the viewers’ behavior of YouTube and their needs to provide accurate and trustworthy information to adopt evidence-based resources. Social implications – Creating the suitable content, in terms of health promotion strategies, associated with the appropriate format and understandable language that people need will be one of the major responsibilities of YouTube management, government and professional bodies. The well-designed health messages will enhance users’ engagement and attention to health issues from trusted sources. Originality/value – There is very less information about Arabic messages in social media, YouTube in particular, specifically regarding cancer treatment. Thus, this study is one of the first studies to explore how Arabic messages are presented on YouTube. The aim of the assessment is to extract the current status and suggest future strategies for different bodies to have effective communication toward the Arabic communities. Keywords Culture, Research methods, Patient perspectives, Informatics, Medical education, Cancer Paper type Research paper 1. Introduction According to Cancer statistics 2018 (Bray et al., 2018), cancer is expected to be the leading cause of deaths in the world in the twenty-first century. It is also considered “the single most important barrier to increasing life expectancy” (Bray et al., 2018). Cancer treatment is still a International Journal of Health Governance Vol. 24 No. 4, 2019 pp. 267-273 © Emerald Publishing Limited 2059-4631 DOI 10.1108/IJHG-05-2019-0035 Received 15 May 2019 Revised 15 May 2019 Accepted 8 July 2019 The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at: www.emeraldinsight.com/2059-4631.htm 267 YouTube videos for cancer treatment