Prediction of ambulatory visits for itching diseases using Google Trends data

Abstract

It would provide insight to know if Google queries for “itch” relate to the probability of a patient visit for common itching diseases in the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey. There was a negative predictive value of visits for vaginitis, vulvitis, and vulvovaginitis [odds ratio 0.983 (95% confidence interval 0.977, 0.989)], psoriasis [0.986 (0.980, 0.992)], and dermatitis [0.983 (0.979, 0.986)] with increased normalized search interest (P<0.0001). There was no relationship between search interest and visits for urticaria [0.997 (0.986, 1.01), P=0.5] or atopic dermatitis [1.02 (0.994, 1.01), P=0.9]. This demonstrates that internet search behavior can affect real world patient visits.