D'Arcy Sarah, Cao Chester, Ahn Steve, Allan Victoria, Ahmadvand Alireza
School of Medicine and Dentistry, Griffith University, Gold Coast, QLD, Australia.
Digit Health. 2022 Dec 21;8:20552076221145799. doi: 10.1177/20552076221145799. eCollection 2022 Jan-Dec.
The COVID-19 pandemic significantly disrupted access to primary care in Australia. This could have negatively impacted reproductive health services rates such as intrauterine device insertion rates, and interest in seeking information about intrauterine devices by searching on Google. We aimed to assess the trends of, and the association between, the actual Medicare service utilization rates for intrauterine device insertion and searching about intrauterine devices on Google, before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.
We conducted systematic analyses of secondary data from June 2017 to May 2022, using Medicare and Google Trends data sources. We visualized the rates of intrauterine device insertion, plus Google's search volumes about 'Intrauterine device' and 'Progestin IUDs' as topics. Then, we assessed the correlation between intrauterine device insertion rates and Google search, using Spearman correlation.
The average yearly rates of intrauterine device insertion increased noticeably from 25.1-26.3 in 2018-2019 to 29.3-31.2 per 100,000 population in 2020-2021 (12-18% increase). The highest monthly intrauterine device insertion rate nationally (37 per 100,000 population) was seen in March 2021. By June 2020, search term use for the two intrauterine device-related topics returned to much higher levels (50% increase for 'Progestin IUDs', and 54% for 'Intrauterine device', respectively). A moderately strong correlation was seen between actual intrauterine device insertion rates and search on Google about intrauterine devices (Spearman rho = 0.61, < 0.000).
We demonstrated a moderately strong correlation between trends of intrauterine device insertion rates and search on Google about intrauterine devices, before and during the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia. Googling about intrauterine devices could, therefore, be a useful indicator to gauge future interest in actual intrauterine device insertion for months thereafter.
新冠疫情严重扰乱了澳大利亚初级医疗服务的获取。这可能对诸如宫内节育器置入率等生殖健康服务比率产生负面影响，并影响通过在谷歌上搜索来获取宫内节育器信息的兴趣。我们旨在评估新冠疫情之前及期间，宫内节育器实际医疗保险服务利用率与在谷歌上搜索宫内节育器之间的趋势及关联。
我们利用医疗保险和谷歌趋势数据源，对2017年6月至2022年5月的二手数据进行了系统分析。我们将宫内节育器置入率以及谷歌关于“宫内节育器”和“孕激素宫内节育器”主题的搜索量进行了可视化展示。然后，我们使用斯皮尔曼相关性分析评估了宫内节育器置入率与谷歌搜索之间的相关性。
宫内节育器的年平均置入率从2018 - 2019年的每10万人25.1 - 26.3显著增加到2020 - 2021年的每10万人29.3 - 31.2（增长12 - 18%）。2021年3月全国月宫内节育器置入率最高（每10万人37例）。到2020年6月，与宫内节育器相关的两个搜索词的使用量回升至更高水平（“孕激素宫内节育器”增长50%，“宫内节育器”增长54%）。实际宫内节育器置入率与谷歌上关于宫内节育器的搜索之间存在中度强相关性（斯皮尔曼相关系数ρ = 0.61，< 0.000）。
我们证明了在澳大利亚新冠疫情之前及期间，宫内节育器置入率趋势与谷歌上关于宫内节育器的搜索之间存在中度强相关性。因此，在谷歌上搜索宫内节育器可能是衡量此后数月对实际宫内节育器置入未来兴趣的一个有用指标。
