COVID-19 and Internet search trends on mental health concerns in Latin America

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic has generated a global health crisis;mental health has been one of the most affected. The objective of this research was to determine the relationship between the number of new cases and daily deaths from COVID-19, as well as Internet search trends on mental health concerns in Latin America. Google Trends was used to determine the relative volume of searches. Regarding the number of new cases and daily deaths from COVID-19, the figures were obtained from the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) dashboard, prepared by the World Health Organization. The evaluation period was from 12/01/2019 to 01/31/2021. The Pearson correlation coefficient with significance level of p < 0.05 was used to obtain the correlation between quantitative variables. The most searched terms in the selected countries were «anxiety» and «unemployment». The correlation analysis showed that the relative search volume of the evaluated terms had slight to moderate correlation with the number of confirmed cases and daily deaths from COVID-19. Slight to moderate correlation was found between the relative search volume of the evaluated terms and the total number of confirmed cases and deaths per day due to COVID-19. © 2022, Centro Nacional de Informacion de Ciencias Medicas. All rights reserved.