Gilbert Barnabas James, Lu Chunling, Yom-Tov Elad
Department of Brain Sciences, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.
Department of Global Health & Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States.
JMIR Form Res. 2023 Mar 22;7:e44055. doi: 10.2196/44055.
Anxiety disorders are the most prevalent mental disorders globally, with a substantial impact on quality of life. The prevalence of anxiety disorders has increased substantially following the COVID-19 pandemic, and it is likely to be further affected by a global economic recession. Understanding anxiety themes and how they change over time and across countries is crucial for preventive and treatment strategies.
The aim of this study was to track the trends in anxiety themes between 2004 and 2020 in the 50 most populous countries with high volumes of internet search data. This study extends previous research by using a novel search-based methodology and including a longer time span and more countries at different income levels.
We used a crowdsourced questionnaire, alongside Bing search query data and Google Trends search volume data, to identify themes associated with anxiety disorders across 50 countries from 2004 to 2020. We analyzed themes and their mutual interactions and investigated the associations between countries' socioeconomic attributes and anxiety themes using time-series linear models. This study was approved by the Microsoft Research Institutional Review Board.
Query volume for anxiety themes was highly stable in countries from 2004 to 2019 (Spearman r=0.89) and moderately correlated with geography (r=0.49 in 2019). Anxiety themes were predominantly long-term and personal, with "having kids," "pregnancy," and "job" the most voluminous themes in most countries and years. In 2020, "COVID-19" became a dominant theme in 27 countries. Countries with a constant volume of anxiety themes over time had lower fragile state indexes (P=.007) and higher individualism (P=.003). An increase in the volume of the most searched anxiety themes was associated with a reduction in the volume of the remaining themes in 13 countries and an increase in 17 countries, and these 30 countries had a lower prevalence of mental disorders (P<.001) than the countries where no correlations were found.
Internet search data could be a potential source for predicting the country-level prevalence of anxiety disorders, especially in understudied populations or when an in-person survey is not viable.
焦虑症是全球最普遍的精神障碍，对生活质量有重大影响。新冠疫情之后，焦虑症的患病率大幅上升，而且可能会受到全球经济衰退的进一步影响。了解焦虑主题以及它们如何随时间和国家而变化对于预防和治疗策略至关重要。
本研究的目的是追踪2004年至2020年期间50个人口最多且有大量互联网搜索数据的国家中焦虑主题的趋势。本研究通过使用一种基于搜索的新颖方法，并纳入更长的时间跨度和更多不同收入水平的国家，扩展了先前的研究。
我们使用了众包问卷，以及必应搜索查询数据和谷歌趋势搜索量数据，来确定2004年至2020年期间50个国家中与焦虑症相关的主题。我们分析了主题及其相互作用，并使用时间序列线性模型研究了国家社会经济属性与焦虑主题之间的关联。本研究得到了微软研究院机构审查委员会的批准。
2004年至2019年期间，各国焦虑主题的查询量高度稳定（斯皮尔曼相关系数r = 0.89），并且与地理有中度相关性（2019年r = 0.49）。焦虑主题主要是长期的和个人的，在大多数国家和年份中，“生育孩子”“怀孕”和“工作”是搜索量最大的主题。2020年，“新冠疫情”在27个国家成为主导主题。随着时间推移焦虑主题搜索量保持不变的国家，其脆弱国家指数较低（P = 0.007），个人主义程度较高（P = 0.003）。在13个国家中，搜索量最大的焦虑主题的增加与其余主题的搜索量减少相关，在17个国家中则与搜索量增加相关，并且这30个国家的精神障碍患病率低于未发现相关性的国家（P < 0.001）。
互联网搜索数据可能是预测国家层面焦虑症患病率的潜在来源，特别是在研究不足的人群中或当面调查不可行时。
