Evaluating the impact of global awareness days on rheumatological search interest before and during the coronavirus-19 (COVID-19) pandemic

Aim of the work: We assessed the online efficacy of global awareness days (GADs) related to 5 rheumatological conditions: ankylosing spondylitis, fibromyalgia, gout, osteoporosis, and rheumatoid arthritis before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: Google Trends was used to obtain global relative search volume (RSV) for each condition, for a 41-day period around each GAD, per annum, between the years 2015 and 2020, inclusive. A joinpoint (time-trend) analysis was subsequently used to identify statistically significant perturbations (p < 0.05) in the overall RSV trend for the 41-day period, per condition, per annum. Results: Between the years 2015 and 2019, inclusive, we found that only 1 out of 5 rheumatological conditions was associated with 3 joinpoints centred around the respective GAD. In contrast, for 2020, 3 out of 5 conditions were associated with 3 joinpoints centred around the respective GAD (p < 0.001, p = 0.03, p = 0.04, for fibromyalgia, gout, and osteoporosis respectively). Conclusions: GADs between the years 2015 and 2019, inclusive, were found to be inconsistent at increasing Google Interest (1 out of 5 conditions, per annum), but that GADs in 2020 were notably more consistent at increasing Google Interest (3 out of 5 conditions). This change in GAD efficacy described for 2020, at least in part, may be explained by the COVID-19 pandemic. Greater insight into how specific populations acquire health information could be leveraged into more effective health campaigns, with far-reaching benefits in screening, prevention, and early diagnosis