RSS-Feed abonnieren
DOI: 10.1055/s-0041-1735203
The Retrospective Analysis of Google Queries Related to Cardiovascular Diseases Symptoms in the Years 2004–2019
Funding None.![](https://www.thieme-connect.de/media/ija/202201/lookinside/thumbnails/10-1055-s-0041-1735203_200124-1.jpg)
Abstract
The Internet enables immediate access to health-related information. We aimed to rank the complaints related to cardiovascular diseases among Google users globally and locally as well as investigate secular and seasonal trends in the years 2004 to 2019. We used Google Trends (GT) to identify and analyze course over time and regional interest of seven topics: “Chest pain,” “Cyanosis,” “Edema,” “Orthopnea,” “Palpitation,” “Shortness of breath,” and “Syncope.” We analyzed secular trends using the seasonal Mann–Kendall test and seasonal variation using time series decomposition. We calculated the interest of all topics in proportion to the relative search volume (RSV) of “Chest Pain.” Globally the most popular topics were: “Edema” (proportion to RSV of “Chest pain,” 1.39), “Chest pain” (1.00), and Syncope (0.71). “Chest pain” was predominately searched in n = 25 countries, while “Edema” in n = 24, “Syncope” in n = 9, and “Shortness of breath” in n = 3. The RSV of all topics increases over time and the most dynamically for “Chest pain” (4.30 RSV/year), “Shortness of breath” (3.87 RSV/year), and “Palpitations” (3.69 RSV/year). Interest in “Chest pain,” “Cyanosis,” “Orthopnea,” “Palpitations,” and “Syncope” peaks in fall and winter, while interest in “Edema” in midsummer and “Shortness of breath” in April. Google users were particularly interested in “Edema,” “Chest pain,” and “Syncope.” The interest in cardiovascular diseases-related symptoms increases over time and presents explicable seasonal variations. The Internet plays the acquisition of health-related information; thus, professionals should create and recommend evidence-based information sources for their patients.
Keywords
cardiovascular disease - chest pain - edema - Google Trends - Internet - palpitations - symptomaticAuthors' Contributions
Concept: M.K.; Data collection: M.K.; Data analysis: M.K.; Figures and tables: M.K.; Interpretation: M.K., M.B., P.B.; Original draft preparation: M.K., M.B.; Critical review and final approval: M.K., M.B., P.B.
Data Availability
Data set is available on Mendeley (do: 10.17632/sd79s6ptyb.1).
* Both authors equally contributed to the study.
Publikationsverlauf
Artikel online veröffentlicht:
01. Oktober 2021
© 2021. International College of Angiology. This article is published by Thieme.
Thieme Medical Publishers, Inc.
333 Seventh Avenue, 18th Floor, New York, NY 10001, USA
-
References
- 1 The top 10 causes of death. Published online May 24, 2018. Accessed November 27, 2019 at: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/the-top-10-causes-of-death
- 2 Jadad AR, Gagliardi A. Rating health information on the Internet: navigating to knowledge or to Babel?. JAMA 1998; 279 (08) 611-614
- 3 Beck F, Richard J-B, Nguyen-Thanh V, Montagni I, Parizot I, Renahy E. Use of the internet as a health information resource among French young adults: results from a nationally representative survey. J Med Internet Res 2014; 16 (05) e128
- 4 Joury AU, Alshathri M, Alkhunaizi M, Jaleesah N, Pines JM. Internet websites for chest pain symptoms demonstrate highly variable content and quality. Choo EK. ed. Acad Emerg Med. 2016. 23. (10): 1146-1152
- 5 Eysenbach G. Infodemiology and infoveillance tracking online health information and cyberbehavior for public health. Am J Prev Med 2011; 40 (05, Suppl 2): S154-S158
- 6 StatCounter GlobalStats Search Engine Market Worldwide. Published online October 5, 2019. Accessed October 5, 2019 at: https://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share/all.
- 7 Nuti SV, Wayda B, Ranasinghe I. et al. The use of Google Trends in health care research: a systematic review. Voracek M. ed. PLoS ONE. 2014. 9. (10): e109583
- 8 Płatek AE, Sierdziński J, Krzowski B, Szymański FM. Seasonal trends in hypertension in Poland: evidence from Google search engine query data. Kardiol Pol 2018; 76 (03) 637-641
- 9 Boehm A, Pizzini A, Sonnweber T. et al. Assessing global COPD awareness with Google Trends. Eur Respir J 2019; 53 (06) 1900351
- 10 Elnegaard S, Andersen RS, Pedersen AF. et al. Self-reported symptoms and healthcare seeking in the general population–exploring “The Symptom Iceberg”. BMC Public Health 2015; 15 (01) 685
- 11 Rosendal M, Carlsen AH, Rask MT, Moth G. Symptoms as the main problem in primary care: a cross-sectional study of frequency and characteristics. Scand J Prim Health Care 2015; 33 (02) 91-99
- 12 Kumar N, Pandey A, Garg N, Sampene E, Lavie CJ. Seasonal and geographic patterns in seeking cardiovascular health information: an analysis of the online search trends. Mayo Clin Proc 2018; 93 (09) 1185-1190
- 13 Kamiński M, Łoniewski I, Marlicz W. Erratum: Kamiński, M., Łoniewski, I., Marlicz, W. Global Internet Data on the Interest in Antibiotics and Probiotics Generated by Google Trends. Antibiotics 2019, 8(3), 147. Antibiotics (Basel) 2019; 8 (04) 147
- 14 Kamiński M, Łoniewski I, Marlicz W. “Dr. Google, I am in Pain”-Global Internet searches associated with pain: a retrospective analysis of Google Trends data. Int J Environ Res Public Health 2020; 17 (03) 954
- 15 Kamiński M, Skonieczna-Żydecka K, Nowak JK, Stachowska E. Global and local diet popularity rankings, their secular trends, and seasonal variation in Google Trends data. Nutrition 2020; 79-80: 110759
- 16 McLeod AI. Kendall rank correlation and Mann-Kendall trend test. Published online May 16, 2011. Accessed July 21, 2019 at: https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/Kendall/Kendall.pdf.
- 17 Hyndman R. Forecasting Functions for Time Series and Linear Models. Published online April 29, 2019. Accessed July 21, 2019 at: https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/forecast/forecast.pdf
- 18 Kamiński M, Borger M, Bogdański P. Mendeley Data: „Dr. Google, my heart is trembling!” – the retrospective analysis of Google queries related to cardiovascular diseases symptoms in the years 2004–2019. Published online February 27, 2020. Accessed February 27, 2020. DOI: 10.17632/sd79s6ptyb.1 https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/sd79s6ptyb/1
- 19 Rui P, Kang K, Ashman J. National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey: 2016 Emergency Department Summary Tables. Accessed November 29, 2019 at: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhamcs/web_tables/2016_ed_web_tables.pdf
- 20 Nölke L, Mensing M, Krämer A, Hornberg C. Sociodemographic and health-(care-)related characteristics of online health information seekers: a cross-sectional German study. BMC Public Health 2015; 15: 31
- 21 Percheski C, Hargittai E. Health information-seeking in the digital age. J Am Coll Health 2011; 59 (05) 379-386
- 22 Moya A, Sutton R, Ammirati F. et al; Task Force for the Diagnosis and Management of Syncope, European Society of Cardiology (ESC), European Heart Rhythm Association (EHRA), Heart Failure Association (HFA), Heart Rhythm Society (HRS). Guidelines for the diagnosis and management of syncope (version 2009). Eur Heart J 2009; 30 (21) 2631-2671
- 23 Ruwald MH, Hansen ML, Lamberts M. et al. The relation between age, sex, comorbidity, and pharmacotherapy and the risk of syncope: a Danish nationwide study. Europace 2012; 14 (10) 1506-1514
- 24 Messineo FC. Ventricular ectopic activity: prevalence and risk. Am J Cardiol 1989; 64 (20) 53J-56J
- 25 Abbott AV. Diagnostic approach to palpitations. Am Fam Physician 2005; 71 (04) 743-750
- 26 Raviele A, Giada F, Bergfeldt L. et al; European Heart Rhythm Association. Management of patients with palpitations: a position paper from the European Heart Rhythm Association. Europace 2011; 13 (07) 920-934
- 27 Quint JK, Brown J. Cyanosis. Br J Hosp Med (Lond) 2011; 72 (09) M130-M133
- 28 Bolognia JL. ed. Dermatology. 1-2 ed.. Mosby; 2003. ISBN: 978-1-4160-2999-1
- 29 Inglis SC, Clark RA, Shakib S. et al. Hot summers and heart failure: seasonal variations in morbidity and mortality in Australian heart failure patients (1994-2005). Eur J Heart Fail 2008; 10 (06) 540-549
- 30 Patel NJ, Nalluri N, Deshmukh A. et al. Seasonal trends of heart failure hospitalizations in the United States: a national perspective from 2000 to 2011. Int J Cardiol 2014; 173 (03) 562-563
- 31 Pucci O, Qualls C, Battisti-Charbonney A. et al. Human skin hypoxia modulates cerebrovascular and autonomic functions. Frasch MG. ed. PLoS ONE. 2012. 7. (10): e47116
- 32 Nicholas R, O'Meara PD, Calonge N. Is syncope related to moderate altitude exposure?. JAMA 1992; 268 (07) 904-906
- 33 van den Broek J, van Boven K, Bor H, Uijen AA. Change in frequency of patient requests for diagnostic screening and interventions during primary care encounters from 1985 to 2014. Fam Pract 2018; 35 (06) 724-730
- 34 Coiera E. The Internet's challenge to health care provision. BMJ 1996; 312 (7022): 3-4
- 35 Cajita MI, Rodney T, Xu J, Hladek M, Han H-R. Quality and health literacy demand of online heart failure information. J Cardiovasc Nurs 2017; 32 (02) 156-164
- 36 Carlsson T, Melander Marttala U, Wadensten B, Bergman G, Axelsson O, Mattsson E. Quality of patient information Websites about congenital heart defects: mixed-methods study of perspectives among individuals with experience of a prenatal diagnosis. Interact J Med Res 2017; 6 (02) e15
- 37 Stewart S, Keates AK, Redfern A, McMurray JJV. Seasonal variations in cardiovascular disease. Nat Rev Cardiol 2017; 14 (11) 654-664
- 38 Fares A. Global patterns of seasonal variation in gastrointestinal diseases. J Postgrad Med 2013; 59 (03) 203-207
- 39 Marti-Soler H, Gonseth S, Gubelmann C. et al. Seasonal variation of overall and cardiovascular mortality: a study in 19 countries from different geographic locations. Pacheco AG. ed. PLoS ONE. 2014. 9. (11): e113500
- 40 Huang JJ, Sharda N, Riaz IB, Alpert JS. Summer syncope syndrome. Am J Med 2014; 127 (08) 787-790
- 41 van Dijk N, Boer MC, De Santo T. et al. Daily, weekly, monthly, and seasonal patterns in the occurrence of vasovagal syncope in an older population. Europace 2007; 9 (09) 823-828
- 42 Anderson CH, Reed MJ. The influence of temperature and humidity on Emergency Department syncope attendances. Eur J Emerg Med 2010; 17 (04) 240-242
- 43 Liu F, Allan GM, Korownyk C. et al. Seasonality of ankle swelling: population symptom reporting using Google Trends. Ann Fam Med 2016; 14 (04) 356-358
- 44 Fleming DM, Cross KW, Sunderland R, Ross AM. Comparison of the seasonal patterns of asthma identified in general practitioner episodes, hospital admissions, and deaths. Thorax 2000; 55 (08) 662-665
- 45 Hale ZE, Singhal A, Hsia RY. Causes of shortness of breath in the acute patient: a national study. Mark Courtney D. ed. Acad Emerg Med. 2018. 25. (11): 1227-1234
- 46 Haasenritter J, Biroga T, Keunecke C. et al. Causes of chest pain in primary care–a systematic review and meta-analysis. Croat Med J 2015; 56 (05) 422-430
- 47 Kontos E, Blake KD, Chou W-YS, Prestin A. Predictors of eHealth usage: insights on the digital divide from the Health Information National Trends Survey 2012. J Med Internet Res 2014; 16 (07) e172