ReviewFrontiers in big data2023
Google Trends for health research: Its advantages, application, methodological considerations, and limitations in psychiatric and mental health infodemiology.
Review in Frontiers in big data, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 25 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
25 citing papers in PubMed.
- Performance of Large Language Models in Oral Cancer Patient Education: An Evaluation of Reliability, Readability, and Patient Communication Quality.Oral health & preventive dentistry · 2026Article
- Pandemic-Associated Shifts and Spatial Inequality in Public Attention to Pulmonary Function Testing in China: A 14-Year Baidu Index Study.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- The Mental Health Impacts of Wildfire Exposure: A Scoping Review of the Quantitative Evidence.Current environmental health reports · 2026Article
- Insights Into Retrograde Cricopharyngeus Dysfunction (R-CPD) Through Analysis of Internet Search Pattern.Laryngoscope investigative otolaryngology · 2026Article
- Readability of Online Patient Education Materials for Endoscopic Spine Surgery.Spine surgery and related research · 2026Article
- Artificial Intelligence Chatbots as Sources of Cancer Pain Information: A Comparative Evaluation of Quality, Transparency, and Readability.Journal of pain research · 2026Article
- Global information-seeking behavior of air pollution and cardiovascular disease: insights from google trends analysis.Frontiers in epidemiology · 2026Article
- Rising Public Interest in Weight Loss Medications and Growing Awareness of Their Aesthetic Sequelae: An Infodemiologic Google Trends Analysis and Clinical Diagnostic Patterning.Journal of cosmetic dermatology · 2026Article
- Ritual to relief: ethical frontiers in repurposing psychoactive substances.CNS spectrums · 2025Review
- Digital Trends in the Italian Beer Market: A Time-Series and Search Engine Optimisation Analysis of Gluten-Free and Low/No-Alcohol Beers.Foods (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- An assessment of anti-VEGF drugs safety based on real-world data: from popularity to spontaneous reporting in eudravigilance database.Graefe's archive for clinical and experimental ophthalmology = Albrecht von Graefes Archiv fur klinische und experimentelle Ophthalmologie · 2025Article
- Readability of patient education materials for lumbar disc replacement.Journal of spine surgery (Hong Kong) · 2025Article
- Readability of online patient education materials for cervical disc replacement.European spine journal : official publication of the European Spine Society, the European Spinal Deformity Society, and the European Section of the Cervical Spine Research Society · 2025Article
- AI Chatbots as Sources of STD Information: A Study on Reliability and Readability.Journal of medical systems · 2025Article
- Effects of direct-to-consumer alcohol home delivery policies on alcohol-related online searches in the United States from 2019 to 2023: A Google Trends study.Preventive medicine reports · 2025Article
- Promises and Pitfalls of Internet Search Data in Mental Health: Critical Review.JMIR mental health · 2025Review
- Public interest in online searching of asthma information: insights from a Google trends analysis.BMC pulmonary medicine · 2025Article
- The COVID-19 pandemic and the worldwide online interest in telepsychiatry: an infodemiological study from 2004 to 2022.Frontiers in digital health · 2025Article
- Sweetening the deal: an infodemiological study of worldwide interest in semaglutide using Google Trends extended for health application programming interface.BMC global and public health · 2024Article
- An Assessment of Semaglutide Safety Based on Real World Data: From Popularity to Spontaneous Reporting in EudraVigilance Database.Biomedicines · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The high utilization of infodemiological tools for psychiatric and mental health topics signals the emergence of a new discipline. Drawing on the definition of infodemiology by Eysenbach, this emerging field can be termed "psychiatric and mental health infodemiology," defined as the science of distribution and determinants of information in an electronic medium, including the internet, or in a population to inform mental health services and policies. Since Google Trends is one of its popular tools, this minireview describes its advantages, application, methodological considerations, and limitations in psychiatric and mental health research. The advantage of Google Trends is the nature of its data, which may represent the actual behavior rather than their users' stated preferences in real-time through automatic anonymization. As such, it can provide readily available data about sensitive health topics like mental disorders. Therefore, Google Trends has been used to explore public concerns, interests, and behaviors about psychiatric and mental health phenomena, service providers, and specific disciplines. In this regard, several methodological can be considered by studies using Google Trends, including documenting their exact keywords, query category, time range, location, and date of retrieval. Likewise, its limitations should be accounted for in its interpretation, including restricted representation of people who use the Google search engine, limited validity in areas with low internet penetration or freedom of speech, does not provide absolute search volumes, unknown sampled queries, and limited transparency in its algorithm, especially the terms and idioms it subsumes under its "topic" keywords.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.