Public Interest in Neurological Diseases on Wikipedia during Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Pandemic

Abstract

Infodemiology is a research discipline that investigates parameters of information distribution in order to support public health and public policy. Wikipedia, a free online encyclopedia, is commonly used as a source of information for infodemiological studies. Using Pageviews analysis, we descriptively assessed the total monthly number of views of the Wikipedia articles in English describing main neurological diseases in the period from January 2018 to July 2020. Our results show a general trend of a decrease in interest in neurological disease-related pages throughout years and especially during the burst of interest towards coronavirus. The monitoring of infodemiological indicators shall be prioritized to reshape global campaigns and tailored advocacy programs.

Wikipedia page views for health research: a review

“…The specific topics explored by the reviewed studies included Dementia (Brigo et al, 2015 ; Alibudbud, 2023b ), fencing response (Roe et al, 2023 ), tumors (e.g., pancreatic tumors, brain tumors, colorectal cancer) (Naik et al, 2021 ; Mondia et al, 2022 ; Gianfredi et al, 2023 ), substance use disorder (Alibudbud and Cleofas, 2022 ), epilepsy (Brigo et al, 2015 ; Okumura et al, 2016 ), schizophrenia (Adams et al, 2020 ), diabetes mellitus (Potapov et al, 2021 ), pain (e.g., migraine, low back pain, inflammation, sciatica) (Brigo et al, 2015 ; Szmuda et al, 2020 ; Ciaffi et al, 2021 ; Potapov et al, 2021 ), cardiovascular diseases (Potapov et al, 2021 ), gastrointestinal conditions (Potapov et al, 2021 ), dermatological agents (Potapov et al, 2021 ), viral infections (e.g., coronavirus, COVID-19, influenza, Chikungunya) (Laurent and Vickers, 2009 ; Mahroum et al, 2018 ; Provenzano et al, 2019 ; Qiu et al, 2019 ; Gozzi et al, 2020 ; O'Leary and Storey, 2020 ; De Toni et al, 2021 ; Gianfredi et al, 2021 ; Rutovic et al, 2021 ; Storey and O'Leary, 2022 ), autoimmune conditions (e.g., Systemic Lupus Erythematosus) (Sciascia and Radin, 2017 ) various medications (e.g., Abacavir, Zidovudine) (Sciascia and Radin, 2017 ; Apollonio et al, 2018 ; Darrow and Borisova, 2022 ), different diets (e.g., vegetarian) (Nucci et al, 2021 ), frostbite (Laurent and Vickers, 2009 ), hypothermia (Laurent and Vickers, 2009 ), carbon monoxide poisoning (Laurent and Vickers, 2009 ), hyperthermia (Laurent and Vickers, 2009 ), sunburn (Laurent and Vickers, 2009 ), insect bites (Laurent and Vickers, 2009 ), and women's health-related topic (e.g., discrimination) (Wang and Zhang, 2020 ). Therefore, the reviewed studies have been predominantly used in understanding health information utilization for various communicable and non-communicable diseases.…”

“…Therefore, the details needed may not be enough to replicate their studies. In this regard, common methodological considerations that may enable replicability among the reviewed studies can be adapted in future studies using Wikipedia page views (Laurent and Vickers, 2009 ; Sciascia and Radin, 2017 ; Mahroum et al, 2018 ; Adams et al, 2020 ; Gozzi et al, 2020 ; Szmuda et al, 2020 ; Ciaffi et al, 2021 ; Nucci et al, 2021 ; Rutovic et al, 2021 ; Alibudbud and Cleofas, 2022 ; Mondia et al, 2022 ; Alibudbud, 2023b ; Roe et al, 2023 ). As shown in Table 1 , these methodological considerations can include specifying the precise Wikipedia page of study, the language of the Wikipedia page, the dates of data collection, the dates explored, the type of data (e.g., monthly or daily), and whether page views were limited to Internet users or web-crawlers and redirects to the Wikipedia page were included in the analysis.…”

“…The most common aim of the reviewed studies was descriptive (n = 13, 44.83%), followed by causal inference (n = 6, 20.69%), surveillance (n = 6, 20.69%), and experimental (n = 4, 13.79%). Specifically, the present review found that data about Wikipedia page views were used to describe the changes and patterns in the utilization of online health information from Wikipedia at the country and global levels (Laurent and Vickers, 2009;Sciascia and Radin, 2017;Mahroum et al, 2018;Adams et al, 2020;Gozzi et al, 2020;Szmuda et al, 2020;Ciaffi et al, 2021;Nucci et al, 2021;Rutovic et al, 2021;Alibudbud and Cleofas, 2022;Mondia et al, 2022;Alibudbud, 2023b;Roe et al, 2023). In addition, it has also been utilized to assess the impact of public events, such as a celebrity's announcement of a disease, the death of a celebrity, media coverage of accidents and epilepsy, on public interest and information usage about different health-related Wikipedia pages (Brigo et al, 2015;Okumura et al, 2016;Naik et al, 2021;Gianfredi et al, 2023).…”

Content and Quality of Information about Stroke in Wikipedia across Multiple Languages

“…Given the high burden of disease that stroke carries globally, we consider it essential to assess the quality of the information available on stroke through this highly utilized information tool regardless of language. Furthermore, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been changes in the interest in neurological disease-related pages in Wikipedia [5]. Therefore, the present study aimed to describe the quality of the Wikipedia articles on stroke written in the 30 most spoken languages in the world.…”