Online searches of children’s oseltamivir in public primary and specialized care: Detecting influenza outbreaks in Finland using dedicated databases for health care professionals

Abstract

Introduction Health care professionals working in primary and specialized care typically search for medical information from Internet sources. In Finland, Physician’s Databases are online portals aimed at professionals seeking medical information. As dosage errors may occur when prescribing medication to children, professionals’ need for reliable medical information has increased in public health care centers and hospitals. Influenza continues to be a public health threat, with young children at risk of developing severe illness and easily transmitting the virus. Oseltamivir is used to treat children with influenza. The objective of this study was to compare searches for children’s oseltamivir and influenza diagnoses in primary and specialized care, and to determine if the searches could aid detection of influenza outbreaks. Methods We compared searches in Physician’s Databases for children’s oral suspension of oseltamivir (6 mg/mL) for influenza diagnoses of children under 7 years and laboratory findings of influenza A and B from the National Infectious Disease Register. Searches and diagnoses were assessed in primary and specialized care across Finland by season from 2012–2016. The Moving Epidemic Method (MEM) calculated seasonal starts and ends, and paired differences in the mean compared two indicators. Correlation was tested to compare seasons. Results We found that searches and diagnoses in primary and specialized care showed visually similar patterns annually. The MEM-calculated starting weeks in searches appeared mainly in the same week. Oseltamivir searches in primary care preceded diagnoses by −1.0 weeks (95% CI: −3.0, −0.3; p = 0.132) with very high correlation (τ = 0.913). Specialized care oseltamivir searches and diagnoses correlated moderately (τ = 0.667). Conclusion Health care professionals’ searches for children’s oseltamivir in online databases linked with the registers of children’s influenza diagnoses in primary and specialized care. Therefore, database searches should be considered as supplementary information in disease surveillance when detecting influenza epidemics.

Detecting epinephrine auto-injector shortages in Finland 2016–2022: Log-data analysis of online information seeking

“…The situations and solutions are usually unique. This current study brings novel knowledge into the field of medicine shortages, and the prior work [20][21][22][23][24] supports the findings that HCPs and citizens seek real-time information in the dedicated medical online databases. This information on searching auto-injectors on the internet can be used in detection of epinephrine shortages.…”

“…The strength of this study was the representativeness of log data from PD and HL, as demonstrated in the previous studies of infectious diseases [20][21][22][23][24]. However, this study has several limitations.…”

“…The first study found that HCPs’ internet searches for Lyme borreliosis coincided with the diagnoses of Lyme borreliosis with clear seasonal variation (2017) [ 20 ], while the second study found similar seasonal variations in Lyme disease–related information-seeking behaviors between citizens and HCPs, and media coverage may have affected HCPs’ and citizens’ searching behavior (2017) [ 21 ]. In the third and fourth studies, HCPs’ searches for oseltamivir in the dedicated databases correlated with influenza diagnoses in adults (2019) [ 22 ] and children (2022) [ 23 ], indicating that the searches could be used as a supplementary source of information when detecting influenza epidemics. The fifth study mathematically analyzed and modeled the database logs used by HCPs and citizens, thus could be used as an additional source of information for surveilling COVID-19 (2021) [ 24 ].…”