SUDEP and emotional leveraging: why not?

Italian Wikipedia and epilepsy: An infodemiological study of online information-seeking behavior

Wikipedia is the most commonly accessed source of health information by both healthcare professionals and the lay public worldwide. We aimed to evaluate information-seeking behavior of Internet users searching the Italian Wikipedia for articles related to epilepsy and its treatment. Using Pageviews Analysis, we assessed the total and mean monthly views of articles from the Italian Wikipedia devoted to epilepsy, epileptic syndromes, seizure type, and antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) from January 1, 2015 to October 31, 2017. We compared the views of the article on epilepsy with those of articles focusing on Alzheimer's disease, migraine, multiple sclerosis, syncope, and stroke and adjusted all results for crude disease prevalence. With the only exception of the article on multiple sclerosis, the adjusted views for the Italian Wikipedia article on epilepsy were higher than those for the other neurological disorders. The most viewed articles on seizure type were devoted to tonic-clonic seizure, typical absence seizure, tonic convulsive seizures, and clonic convulsive seizures. The most frequently accessed articles on epilepsy syndromes were about temporal lobe epilepsy and Lennox-Gastaut syndrome. The most frequently viewed articles on AEDs were devoted to valproic acid, carbamazepine, and levetiracetam. Wikipedia searches seem to mirror patients' fears and worries about epilepsy more than its actual epidemiology. The ultimate reasons for searching online remain unknown. Epileptologists and epilepsy scientific societies should make greater efforts to work jointly with Wikipedia to convey more accurate and up-to-date information about epilepsy.

Google search behavior for status epilepticus

BACKGROUND

Millions of people surf the Internet every day as a source of health-care information looking for materials about symptoms, diagnosis, treatments and their possible adverse effects, or diagnostic procedures. Google is the most popular search engine and is used by patients and physicians to search for online health-related information. This study aimed to evaluate changes in Google search behavior occurring in English-speaking countries over time for the term "status epilepticus" (SE).

METHODS

Using Google Trends, data on global search queries for the term SE between the 1st of January 2004 and 31st of December 2014 were analyzed. Search volume numbers over time (downloaded as CSV datasets) were analyzed by applying the "health" category filter.

RESULTS

The research trends for the term SE remained fairly constant over time. The greatest search volume for the term SE was reported in the United States, followed by India, Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, the Netherlands, Thailand, and Germany. Most terms associated with the search queries were related to SE definition, symptoms, subtypes, and treatment. The volume of searches for some queries (nonconvulsive, focal, and refractory SE; SE definition; SE guidelines; SE symptoms; SE management; SE treatment) was enormously increased over time (search popularity has exceeded a 5000% growth since 2004).

CONCLUSIONS

Most people use search engines to look for the term SE to obtain information on its definition, subtypes, and management. The greatest search volume occurred not only in developed countries but also in developing countries where raising awareness about SE still remains a challenging task and where there is reduced public knowledge of epilepsy. Health information seeking (the extent to which people search for health information online) reflects the health-related information needs of Internet users for a specific disease. Google Trends shows that Internet users have a great demand for information concerning some aspects of SE (definition, subtypes, symptoms, treatment, and guidelines). Policy makers and neurological scientific societies have the responsibility to try to meet these information needs and to better target public information campaigns on SE to the general population. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled "Status Epilepticus".