ORIGINAL ARTICLE Maryse Larouche 1,5 & Roxana Geoffrion 1 & Darren Lazare 1 & Aisling Clancy 2 & Terry Lee 3 & Nicole A. Koenig 1 & Geoffrey W. Cundiff 1 & Lynn Stothers 4 Received: 24 July 2015 /Accepted: 20 November 2015 /Published online: 9 December 2015 # The International Urogynecological Association 2015 Abstract Introduction and hypothesis Scant literature exists about the quality of urogynecological content on social media. Our ob- jective was to measure the accuracy and comprehensiveness of YouTube videos related to mid-urethral sling (MUS) procedures. Methods YouTube was searched using the terms Bmid-ure- thral sling,^ Bvaginal tape,^ BTVT,^ BTOT,^ BTVT surgery,^ and BTOT surgery.^ Duplicates and videos with less than 1, 000 views were excluded. We developed a standardized ques- tionnaire for this project, assessing each video’ s target audi- ence, main purpose, relevance, informed consent elements, surgical steps, and bias. The primary outcome was the pres- ence of all elements of informed consent. Inter-rater reliability (IRR) was calculated using the Fleiss’ kappa statistic. Descrip- tive statistics were also obtained. Results Five reviewers each rated 56 videos. Mean IRR was moderate (Fleiss’ kappa 0.58±0.24). Video content was clas- sified as physician educational material (67.9 %), patient in- formation (16.1 %), advertisement (10.7 %), lawsuit recruit- ment (1.8 %), and unclear (3.6 %). MUS was the primary topic for 82.1 % of the videos. The remainder discussed other types of anti-incontinence procedures or prolapse surgery. None of the videos mentioned all four elements of informed consent. Of 32 videos demonstrating surgical technique, none showed the complete list of pre-determined surgical steps. The mean number of listed steps was 7.6/16. Only four videos mentioned at least one post-operative patient instruction. A marketing element was shown in 26.8 % of videos. Conclusions Patient information about MUS on YouTube is lacking and often biased. Physicians and students viewing YouTube videos for educational purposes should be cognizant of the variability in the surgical steps demonstrated. Keywords Medical education . Midurethral slings . Social media . Suburethral slings . Surgical education . Stress urinary incontinence Abbreviations IRR Inter-rater reliability MUS Mid-urethral sling TVT Tension-free vaginal tape TOT Transobturator tape Introduction Social media use has grown tremendously over the last few years, and has become an integral part of everyday life. Seventy-four percent of adult Internet users use social Non-oral poster at the 2015 Society of Gynecologic Surgeons (SGS) 41st Annual Scientific Meeting in Orlando, FL, USA, 22–25 March 2015, and ePoster at the 2015 International Urogynecological Association (IUGA) 40th Annual Meeting, in Nice, France, 9–13 June 2015 * Maryse Larouche maryse.larouche@gmail.com 1 Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada 2 Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada 3 Centre for Health Evaluation and Outcome Sciences, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada 4 Department of Urology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada 5 St. Paul’ s Hospital, 1190 Hornby Street, 11th floor, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6Z 2K5 Int Urogynecol J (2016) 27:903–908 DOI 10.1007/s00192-015-2908-1 Mid-urethral slings on YouTube: quality information on the internet?