1 - Immunoallergology Department, Hospital de Dona Estefânia, Centro Hospitalar de Lisboa Central, EPE, Rua Jacinta Marto, Lisbon, Portugal
2 - CEDOC, Integrated Pathophysiological Mechanisms Research Group, Nova Medical School, Campo dos Mártires da Pátria, 1150-190 Lisbon, Portugal
- Allergy school on Eosinophilic Esophagitis, Roterdão, 16-18 de Março de 2018
- Apresentação sob a forma de poster; publicação de resumo
- Reunião internacional
- Premiado “travel grant award”
RESUMO:
INTRODUCTION: Eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE) is a recently recognised pathologic entity with increasing interest amongst the medical community. Little is known about the general population’s interest on this matter subject, particularly through means of web-searching for information. The aim of our study is to identify a correlation between subsequent months and web-search for EoE.
METHODS: Google® Trends (GT) is a web-based search tool used to analyze the searching trends of specific queries over a defined period of time in Google®. GT works by analyzing the number of Google® searches made with the term/s entered, which are proportionate to the total number of searches done over the same time and region. GT’s outputs are normalized for the total number of searches and for the defined period. Another feature of GT is the ability to explore the results by region, comparing the search term popularity relative to the total number of Google® searches performed at that time, in that location. We conducted a worldwide online retrospective analysis, using GT with the term “eosinophilic esophagitis”, in English, over the period of 2004-2016. Spearman correlation was used to identify a linear relationship between months and the GT search index for “eosinophilic esophagitis”.
RESULTS: Our analyses used the data extracted from the period described above, covering 13 years of the GTs data. March 2012 was the month with the maximum GT search index and February 2004 had the minimum number of searches. During the study period there was a linear increase in the GT search index (rs=0.845; p<0,001). Despite the increase in the GT search index for EoE, in recent years, the web-searches were mainly from the United States of America (100), Canada (44), Australia (39) and the United Kingdom (14).
CONCLUSION: A very strong positive correlation between successive months and worldwide web-searches for eosinophilic esophagitis was found. Despite its worldwide increasingly interest, measured by means of web-search action, USA and Canada showed the most interest in this subject.
Palavras Chave: Eosinophilic esophagitis, EoE, Google® Trends