The Characteristics, Uses, and Biases of Studies Related to Malignancies Using Google Trends: Systematic Review.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The internet is a primary source of health information for patients, supplementing physician care. Google Trends (GT), a popular tool, allows the exploration of public interest in health-related phenomena. Despite the growing volume of GT studies, none have focused explicitly on oncology, creating a need for a systematic review to bridge this gap.

Objective

We aimed to systematically characterize studies related to oncology using GT to describe its utilities and biases.

Methods

We included all studies that used GT to analyze Google searches related to malignancies. We excluded studies written in languages other than English. The search was performed using the PubMed engine on August 1, 2022. We used the following search input: "Google trends" AND ("oncology

SUBMITTER: Kaminski M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10439473 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature