Google Trends Insights into Reduced Acute Coronary Syndrome Admissions during COVID-19 Pandemic: An Infodemiology Study
ABSTRACT
Background:
During the COVID 19 epidemic a reduction in the presentation of ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) volumes has been noted across the US. However, if these trends reflect a reduction in acute coronary syndrome (ACS) incidence or a decrease in the presentation to the emergency room is unknown. Using Google Trends, queries for chest pain that have previously been shown to closely correlate with coronary heart disease were compared with search for heart attacks and COVID 19 symptoms.
Objective:
The current study was designed to assess if the reduction in STEMI presentation is associated with to a decrease in searched symptoms of acute coronary syndrome.
Methods:
Google Trends data for search terms chest pain, heart attack, cough, and fever were obtained from Jan. 15th – April 15th, 2020. Searches were compared with the same time period in 2019. Related Queries were evaluated for a relationship to coronary heart disease.
Results:
Following the onset of the COVID 19 pandemic chest pain searches increased by 39.4% while searches for heart attack decreased by 14.9%. Rising searches for chest pain included, “coronavirus chest pain”, “home remedies for chest pain”, and “what can I take for my chest pain”. COVID 19 symptoms (cough, fever) searches rose initially but have returned to near baseline search volume while chest pain searches remain elevated.
Conclusions:
Search engine queries for chest pain have risen during the pandemic as have related searches with alternative attribution for chest pain or home care for chest raising concern that recent drops in STEMI presentation may be due to patients avoiding presentation to the emergency room and potential treatment in the setting of the COVID 19 pandemic. Clinical Trial: None
Citation
Request queued. Please wait while the file is being generated. It may take some time.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.