Utilizing Google Trends to Track Online Interest in Elective Hand Surgery During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

IntroductionElective hand surgery encompasses a large volume of orthopaedic cases annually. Carpal tunnel syndrome, ganglion cysts, and trigger digits are some of the most common pathologies treated by hand surgeons. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, patient's interest in elective hand surgery for these conditions is uncertain. The objective of this study is to use Google Trends to track online interest in elective hand surgery in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic. MethodsOnline search trends regarding elective orthopaedic hand surgery were obtained via Google Trends from November 2019 to November 2020. Three common hand pathologies in lay terms ("carpal tunnel," "'ganglion cyst' + 'wrist cyst,'" and "trigger finger") and three hand surgery-specific keywords ("hand surgery," "carpal tunnel surgery," and "trigger finger surgery") were used as search terms. The search volume index (SVI) graphs for the United States for both sets of search terms were then generated from the Google Trends data and compared to the seven-day average of new COVID-19 cases per day as reported by the CDC. A separate SVI graph was then created for the search term "coronavirus" and was compared against both sets of search terms as above. ResultsSearch trends for all elective hand pathologies and surgery-specific keywords remained constant from November 2019 to the beginning of March 2020 and then decreased significantly within a one-month period following the peak in COVID-19 cases the week of March 15, 2020. Search trends for these keywords increased to baseline levels over the next few months. The search trend for "coronavirus" demonstrated a small search volume index peak of 13 during January 2020 followed by the maximum peak of 100 during the week of March 15, 2020, corresponding to the decrease in search trends of elective hand surgery at that time. ConclusionsOnline interest in elective hand surgery remained constant prior to the COVID-19 pandemic; however, there was a marked decrease in search trends of elective hand surgery with the rise in daily reported COVID-19 cases, suggesting that patient's interest in elective hand surgery decreased with the onset of the pandemic.

The Relationship Between Public Interest and Surgical Demand During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…This suggests that while elective surgery RSV is primarily used as an indicator of interest, it could also be used to gauge demand, idempotent to the presence of acute, disruptive events. The findings that the drop in demand for elective surgeries after the COVID-19 peak on March 14, 2020, caused significant decreases in search volume [5,17] is supported in this study as we found that the COVID-19 peak increased COVID-19 RSV and decreased elective surgery RSV and surgical volume. By finding the algebraic relationship between RSV and caseloads, models can be generated to accurately predict surgical volume as RSV is provided daily by Google Trends.…”

“…This provides a measure from 0 to 100 in the relative search interest for a given search term over a specific time period. Each term was searched individually as was done in previous work with Google Trends since searching multiple terms at once would instead provide a relative value between the searches [ 5 ].…”

“…Raw weekly averages for RSV data were plotted with confirmed case counts to observe the trends over the course of 2019 and 2020. The RSV for knee replacement, hip replacement, appendicitis, and coronavirus during the five weeks preceding and following the March 14 peak in coronavirus RSV were compared using a T-test with a significant threshold of p = 0.05 [ 5 ]. The standardized mean difference, Cohen’s D, was calculated to determine the effect of peak coronavirus public interest on itself and the other medical search terms.…”

“…Other studies have used Google Trends to track public interest in surgeries and medical procedures. Mohty et al used Google Trends to analyze public interest in elective hand surgery [ 5 ], while others have used Google Trends public interest in platelet-rich plasma injections [ 6 , 7 ]. Google Trends has also been used to track demand in plastic surgery [ 8 ] and compare it to plastic surgery capacity, but not surgical volume [ 9 ].…”

Global online interest in cervical cancer care in the time of COVID-19: An infodemiology study

“…This is mirrored by our study’s findings, where we also found decreased online interest in cervical cancer and the Pap test after the pandemic was declared. Expectedly, as interest in COVID-19 increased ( Effenberger et al, 2020 ), online interest in other health topics decreased transiently ( Alonto et al, 2022 , Dzaye et al, 2021 , Jella et al, 2020 , Mohty et al, 2021 ). On the other hand, increased online interest in the HPV vaccine may be related to the general increased online interest in vaccines given the pandemic – global online interest in both pneumococcal and influenza vaccines also peaked in February and March 2020 ( Paguio et al, 2020 ).…”