The Popularity of the Biologically-Based Therapies During Coronavirus Pandemic Among the Google Users in the USA, UK, Germany, Italy and France.
Complement Ther Med
; 58: 102682, 2021 May.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1121786
ABSTRACT
OBJECT The aim of this retrospective infodemiological study was to evaluate people's interests in biologically-based (B-B) complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) therapies such as herbs, foods, and supplements during the coronavirus pandemic via analysis of Google search engine statistics. DESIGN & SETTINGS The category, period, and regions selected in the Google Trends were "health," "15 January-15 May 2020," in the United States of America (USA), the United Kingdom (UK), Germany, Italy, and France, respectively. The most commonly searched herbs, foods and supplements (n = 32) during the pandemic were determined from a pool of keywords (n = 1286) based on the terms' relative search volumes (RSVs) within the last five years. Correlation analyses were conducted to investigate associations between coronavirus-related parameters with each keyword's RSV for each country. Selected keywords (n = 25) were analyzed using the gtrendsR package in the R programming language; the ggplot2 package was used to visualize the data, the Prophet package was used to estimate the time series, and the dplyr package was used to create the data frame. RESULTS:
Significantly strong positive correlations were identified between daily RSVs of the terms "black seed," "vitamin C," "zinc," and "quercetin," and search queries for "coronavirus" and "COVID-19" in the USA (Spearman's correlation coefficient > 0.8, p < 0.05), and between the RSVs of the terms "vitamin C" and "zinc," and daily search queries for "coronavirus" and/or "COVID-19" in the UK (Spearman's correlation coefficient > 0.8, p < 0.05).CONCLUSION:
Google Trends can be a beneficial tool for following public interest in identifying outbreak-related misinformation, and scientific studies and statements from authorities and the media play a potential role in driving internet searches.Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Trace Elements
/
Vitamins
/
Dietary Supplements
/
Functional Food
/
Information Seeking Behavior
/
Search Engine
/
COVID-19
/
Phytotherapy
Type of study:
Experimental Studies
/
Observational study
Topics:
Traditional medicine
Limits:
Humans
Country/Region as subject:
North America
/
Europa
Language:
English
Journal:
Complement Ther Med
Journal subject:
Complementary Therapies
Year:
2021
Document Type:
Article
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