ABSTRACT
COVID-19 pandemic created an unprecedented disruption of daily life including the pattern of skincare in healthcare settings by issuing stay-at-home orders around the world. There has been limited information about trends of skincare-related public interest during CVOID-19 and whether any substantial disruption in population-level behavior. The objective of this study is to evaluate the change in skincare-related population interest around the world during the COVID-19 pandemic time. Weekly RSV data were extracted worldwide and in 25 counties between August 1, 2016, and August 31, 2020. Interrupted time-series analysis was conducted as the quasi-experimental approach to evaluate the longitudinal effects of COVID-19 skincare-related search queries. For each country, autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model relative search volume (RSV) time series and then testing multiple periods simultaneously to examine the magnitude of the interruption. Multivariate linear regression was used to estimate the correlation between the relative changes in RSV with COVID-19 confirmed cases/ per million population and lockdown measures. Of 25 included countries in our study, 17 showed significantly increased (p<0.01) RSVs during the lockdown period compared with ARIMA forecasted data. The highest percentage of increments occurs in May and June in most countries. There was also a significant correlation between lockdown measures and the number of COVID-19 cases with relative changes in population interests for skincare. Understanding the trend and changes in skincare public interest during COVID-19 may assist health authorities to promote accessible educational information and preventive initiatives regarding skin problems.
Keywords: COVID-19, Skincare, ARIMA, Dermatology, Social distancing, and Time-series analysis.
Citation: Symum H, Islam MF, Hiya HK, and Ali KM. (2021). Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on population-level interest in skincare: evidence from a Google trends. Eur. J. Med. Health Sci., 3(6), 147-160.
https://doi.org/10.34104/ejmhs.021.01470160
