Medical College of Wisconsin, 8701 W Watertown Plank Rd, Wauwatosa, WI, 53226, USA.
Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Cedars Sinai, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
Aesthetic Plast Surg. 2022 Aug;46(4):1653-1661. doi: 10.1007/s00266-022-02877-9. Epub 2022 Apr 19.
The internet has revolutionized health information delivery. With instantaneous and widespread access to electronic sources, patients have countless options with regard to where and how they acquire medical information. Although this enables patients to feel informed, uncontextualized misinformation can derail patients as much as accurate information can empower them. To better understand the sources of information available, a Google Trends analysis was performed.
Search volume data were collected for the terms "ALCL," "textured implants," "Anaplastic Large Cell Lymphoma," "breast implant illness," and "breast implant cancer." Data were collected for 1- and 5-year search periods ending on May 1, 2020. Peaks were correlated to relevant news articles or FDA statements.
Results uncovered that news platforms like the New York Times (NYT) and The Guardian had greater public visibility when compared to official announcements through the FDA or pharmaceutical companies. During these peaks in public interest, search results on Google were dominated by information from media sources, highlighting a weakness in the general public's access to credible online health information.
Online search volume and regional data obtained from Google Trends can serve to strategize timely and targeted dissemination of important medical announcements to the public. Evidence from this study reveals pitfalls of the current model for dissemination of information and provides valuable, actionable methods for improved patient outreach for future communications.
This journal requires that authors assign a level of evidence to each article. For a full description of these Evidence-Based Medicine ratings, please refer to the Table of Contents or the online Instructions to Authors www.springer.com/00266 .
互联网彻底改变了健康信息的传递方式。由于可以即时、广泛地访问电子资源，患者在获取医疗信息的地点和方式上有无数选择。虽然这使患者感到知情，但没有上下文的错误信息可能会像准确信息一样使他们陷入困境。为了更好地了解可用的信息来源，我们进行了 Google Trends 分析。
收集了“ALCL”、“纹理植入物”、“间变性大细胞淋巴瘤”、“乳房植入病”和“乳房植入癌”这些术语的搜索量数据。数据收集期限为 1 年和 5 年，截至 2020 年 5 月 1 日。将高峰与相关新闻文章或 FDA 声明相关联。
结果显示，与 FDA 或制药公司的官方公告相比，《纽约时报》（NYT）和《卫报》等新闻平台具有更大的公众可见度。在公众关注度的高峰期，谷歌上的搜索结果主要来自媒体来源的信息，这突显了公众获取可信在线健康信息的能力不足。
从 Google Trends 获得的在线搜索量和区域数据可用于为向公众及时、有针对性地发布重要医疗公告制定策略。本研究的证据揭示了当前信息传播模式的陷阱，并为未来的传播提供了宝贵的、可操作的改进患者外联方法。
证据水平 V：本刊要求作者为每篇文章指定证据水平。有关这些循证医学评级的完整描述，请参考目录或在线作者指南 www.springer.com/00266 。
