Global Search Trends: Geographic and Temporal Disparities in the Relative Search Volume for Orofacial Pain Types

Background and Aims

In the information era, seeking health information from search engines is not uncommon. These search trends or relative search volumes (RSV) have been used in the past to evaluate and forecast epidemics. This study aimed to evaluate the variations of the searches for orofacial pain types from 197 countries in a decade using Google Trends (GT).

Methods

A search query was done with the parameters Worldwide as location, January 1, 2010-December 31, 2019 as time range, Health as category, Web Search as database, and the search terms tooth pain (TP), jaw pain (JP), face pain (FP), head pain (HP), and mouth pain (MP) were used. Comma-separated value files were downloaded from the internet and analyzed. Search trends were expressed as RSV or the maximum popularity rate in a given search term, place, and time.

Results

The results of a two-way ANOVA found substantial differences on the RSV for types of pain, F (26, 1215) = 39.47, p< 0.001. Out of the 27 countries that elicited a response, HP was found to be significantly higher than any other orofacial pain type in India, Ireland, Kenya, Pakistan and South Africa. A Brown-Forsythe and Welch ANOVA found considerable disparities in search trends for various types of pain, F (4, 21) = 40.86, p< 0.001. A Dunnett’s T3 multiple comparisons test revealed that the RSV for JP (29.2±2.1, p< 0.001), FP (14.8±1.0, p< 0.001) and MP (16.4±1.3, p< 0.001) were significantly lower than TP (65.8±6.6). There was no statistically significant difference between TP and HP (p >0.999).

Conclusions

This study revealed an increasing interest in orofacial pain over a period of a decade. The use of GT may offer an invaluable insight into global information-seeking behavior in terms of orofacial pain.