Malaysian Public Interest in Common Medical Problems: A 10-Year Google Trends Analysis

Abstract

BackgroundAn analysis of internet search has been performed to evaluate the public interest in health problems. Google Trends (GT) serves as a free platform to analyse the search traffic for specific terms in the Google search engine. This observational study aims to investigate the trend of Malaysian population in using the Google search engine on common medical problems and explore the geographical influence on the language used. Material and methodFifteen pairs of keywords, in Malay and English language, were chosen after going through forward and backward translation and vetting by a panel of experts. GT data for the selected keywords from 1st of January 2011 to 31st of December 2020 was extracted. Trend analysis was performed using paired t-test between the first half of the decade and the second half of the decade. The different languages used were analysed based on geographical variation using paired t-test. ResultsThe public interest on those keywords was markedly increased in the second half of the decade with 29 out of 30 keywords showing statistically significant difference. Majority of the states preferred to use Malay keywords, especially those residing at the East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia. ConclusionThis observational study illustrates the ability of GT to track healthcare interest among Malaysian population. GT provides a good platform to analyse specific healthcare interest in Malaysian population, but investigators have to bear in mind the geographical influence on the language used.

Looking for a Silver Lining to the Dark Cloud: A Google Trends Analysis of Contraceptive Interest in the United States Post Roe vs. Wade Verdict

“…Google Trends is an objective data source being increasingly used in health care research [9]. These trends have proven to be especially useful in gauging general awareness regarding public health issues [10,11]. The search trends included in the present article give valuable insight into the minds of US citizens on the background of the Roe vs. Wade verdict.…”

COVID-19 Infodemiology: Association Between Google Search and Vaccination in Malaysian Population

“…Considering the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, this is the first study in Malaysia that investigates the behavior of public interest in COVID-19 vaccination using GT analysis. A 10-year GT analysis by Kow et al reveals that GT is a viable platform to track healthcare interest among the Malaysian population, despite a geographical variation in the language used [ 17 ]. Similar behavior has been noted by Izhar and Torabi and Lim et al whereby the Malaysian public has been using Google search extensively to enquire information related to COVID-19 during the pandemic [ 18 , 19 ].…”

“…First and foremost, this study uses Google Trends which only analyses the search behavior of people using the Google search engine. Nevertheless, as previous studies have indicated, Google is an overwhelming search engine of choice among Malaysians, hence the risk of bias will be kept to a minimum [ 17 ]. In addition, keywords used in GT analysis will affect SVI.…”

“…Keywords such as “vaccine covid19” and “vaccine booster” were used for GT analysis. Bearing the geographical influence of languages used in Google search, we also used Malay language keywords such as “vaksin covid19” and “vaksin penggalak” for the GT analysis [ 17 ]. The search volume index (SVI) derived from using the above keywords within the study duration was documented.…”

“…Ergo, numerous COVID-19-related infodemiological studies have been conducted worldwide to unravel the information-seeking behavior of the public [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16]. In Malaysia, Google is the main search engine with increasing number of Malaysian population utilizing it to search for information on common medical problems [17]. Similarly, Google Trends analysis reveals that most Malaysians have been seeking information using Google search during this pandemic period [18,19].…”