Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Public Health and Surveillance
Date Submitted: Dec 20, 2018
Open Peer Review Period: Dec 31, 2018 - Feb 25, 2019
Date Accepted: Aug 2, 2019
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Association between Internet searches and moisturizer prescription in Japan
ABSTRACT
Background:
Heparinoid is a medicine prescribed for skin diseases, such as atopic dermatitis and dry skin, in Japan. Heparinoid prescription has increased with Internet blogs recommending its use as a cosmetic.
Objective:
The purpose of this study was to examine the prescription trends in moisturizer use and analyze the association between prescription moisturizer use and Internet searches.
Methods:
We used an administrative database to demonstrate prescription and Google Trends, and obtained Internet search data for the period between October 1, 2007 and September 31, 2017 in Japan. We identified heparinoid-only prescription from pharmacy data. To analyze the association between heparinoid prescription and Internet searches, we performed an autoregressive integrated moving average approach for each time series.
Results:
We identified 155,733 patients who had been prescribed heparinoid. The number of prescriptions increased from 2011 onward, and related Internet searches increased from 2012 onward. Internet searches were significantly correlated with total heparinoid prescription (0.25, P = .005). In addition, Internet searches were significantly correlated with heparinoid prescription in those aged 20–59 years at 1 month (0.30, P = .001).
Conclusions:
Prescription heparinoid and Google searches related to heparinoid showed a seasonal pattern and increased gradually over the preceding several years. Google searches were positively correlated with prescription trends. In addition, in a particular age group (20–59 years), prescriptions increased with the increase in Internet searches. These results suggest that people obtained health-related information on the Internet, and this affected their behavior and prescription requests.
Citation
Per the author's request the PDF is not available.
Copyright
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