Abstract
<jats:sec> <jats:title>Background</jats:title> <jats:p>Due to the fast growth of short video services, more and more individuals use platforms like Douyin (the Chinese version of TikTok) and Bilibili to find out some health-related information concerning hospice and palliative care (HPC). Nevertheless, the credibility and reliability of HPC-related materials in these platforms are still ambiguous. Previous studies on health information in short videos have mainly focused on Western platforms such as YouTube and TikTok (international version), leaving a gap in systematic evaluation of HPC content on Chinese platforms.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title>Objective</jats:title> <jats:p>The purpose of this paper is to assess the quality and reliability of the Chinese-language short videos related to HPC on Douyin and Bilibili and to analyze the associations between the characteristics of the content and user involvement.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title>Methods</jats:title> <jats:p>The present cross-sectional research is a study of the top 100 most popular HPC-related videos on each platform according to the “comprehensive ranking” (a composite algorithm score integrating view counts, likes, comments, shares, and recency, as displayed by default on both platforms). Video quality and reliability were assessed with three validated scoring tools by three independent raters-Global Quality Score (GQS), modified DISCERN (mDISCERN), and JAMA benchmark criteria. Inter-rater reliability was assessed using intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC). The statistical analyses were done using the Mann–Whitney U tests, Kruskal–Wallis tests for multi-group comparisons, and Spearman correlation analyses with 95% confidence intervals (CI).</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title>Results</jats:title> <jats:p> The analysis covered 200 videos. In Douyin videos, the GQS scores were statistically significantly higher than in Bilibili (the median score was 4.75 compared with 4.40, <jats:italic>p</jats:italic> &lt; 0.001, <jats:italic>r</jats:italic> = 0.41, 95% CI: 0.28-0.54); no statistically significant differences in mDISCERN and JAMA scores were identified in the two platforms. Health care professionals had videos with better quality ratings using all three assessment methods. Engagement measures of users (likes, comments, shares) were significantly greater on Douyin than on Bilibili (all <jats:italic>p</jats:italic> &lt; 0.001). Likes and GQS scores had weak positive correlations ( <jats:italic>r</jats:italic> = 0.376, <jats:italic>p</jats:italic> &lt; 0.001, 95% CI: 0.24-0.51), indicating that popularity metrics alone are not reliable surrogates of information quality. </jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title>Conclusions</jats:title> <jats:p>In general, the HPC-related short videos had a fair quality on both platforms with major areas to improve the level of reliability of information and the use of evidence in support. The healthcare professional-uploaded content proved to be high-quality. These results underscore the necessity of improving the regulation of content and promoting authoritative health information on the short video platforms.</jats:p> </jats:sec>