ABSTRACT
Objective:To explore the hotspots of the public concerns about quitting smoking before and during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.Methods:The monthly search index data of four key words, “the harm of smoking”，“quitting smoking”，“passive smoking” and “electronic cigarette” before the COVID-19 (from January, 2016 to December, 2019) and during the COVID-19 (from January, 2020 to December, 2020) pandemic were manually collected from the Baidu Index platform. The one-way ANOVA was used to compare the differences among annual search indexes of four keywords. The linear regression model was used to test the annual linear trend of search index of each keyword before the COVID-19, and the one-sample t-test was used to analyze the differences of the search indexes during the COVID-19 and the means before the COVID-19. Results:During 2016—2020, the annual average search index of “electronic cigarette” was the highest (1.465 million), followed by “the harm of smoking” (0.884 million) and “quitting smoking” (0.780 million), while “passive smoking” was the lowest (0.171 million). Before the COVID-19 (2016—2019), the search index of each keyword had positive cumulative growth, but there was no significant linear trend of annual change ( P>0.05). During the COVID-19 period (2020), the search index of “the harm of smoking” decreased significantly (0.794 million vs 0.907 million, P=0.011), and “quitting smoking” (0.591 million vs 0.827 million, P=0.172) and “passive smoking” (0.164 million vs 0.172 million, P=0.257) showed a downward trend, while the search index of “electronic cigarettes” bucked the trend and increased significantly (1.825 million vs 1.375 million, P=0.010). Conclusions:The public′s online attention to “electronic cigarette” increases dramatically during COVID-19 along with other information about quitting smoking decreases. There are urgent needs for strengthening regulation and monitoring of electronic cigarettes and carrying out more effective publicity of scientific methods to help quit smoking.