Google Trends as a resource for bariatric education: what do patients want to know?

Bariatric surgery (BaS) is the safest, most effective, and most durable therapy for obesity but is performed in less than 1% of the affected United States (US) population. It is challenging to determine from traditional surveys if this phenomenon is the result of poor access to care or lack of inter...

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Published inSurgery for obesity and related diseases Vol. 16; no. 12; pp. 1948 - 1953
Main Authors Aleman, Rene, Milla-Matute, Cristian, Mora, María Fonseca, Gomez, Camila Ortiz, Blanco, David Gutierrez, Lo Menzo, Emanuele, Szomstein, Samuel, Rosenthal, Raul J.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States Elsevier Inc 01.12.2020
Subjects
Bariatric Surgery
Google Trends
Humans
Internet
Michigan
Obesity
United States
West Virginia
West Virginia
United States
Michigan
Google Trends
Obesity
Bariatric surgery
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Summary:Bariatric surgery (BaS) is the safest, most effective, and most durable therapy for obesity but is performed in less than 1% of the affected United States (US) population. It is challenging to determine from traditional surveys if this phenomenon is the result of poor access to care or lack of interest among Internet users. The aim of this study was to use Google Trends (GT) as a tool to analyze the US general population interest in BaS. Academic Hospital, United States. GT was used to access data searched for the term bariatric surgery. The gathered information included data from 2008 through 2018 in English within the US. Search frequency, time intervals, locations, frequent topics of interest, and related searches were analyzed. GT reports search frequency on means, and a value of 100 represented peak popularity. The number of Google searches related to the term bariatric surgery has gradually increased over time, from a mean of 67% in 2008 to a 94% interest in 2017. Regarding interest by subregion in 2017, the state of Michigan lead the frequency of searches, followed by Indiana, Delaware, West Virginia, and Tennessee. Top searched terms by frequency were the following: patient eligibility for BaS, what is BaS, what are the complications of BaS, financial costs of BaS, and what insurance companies cover BaS. It appears that traditional Web sites only address a few. GT complements the understanding of interest in BaS. Using these trends can improve an Internet user’s education, and tailor specific official Web sites for the public’s general interest. •Bariatric surgery•Google trends•Patient therapeutic education•Worldwide web•Web-based search engines•US web-based search tendencies
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ISSN:1550-7289
1878-7533
DOI:10.1016/j.soard.2020.08.007