Public Interest in Cataract Surgery: Analysis and Implications of Google Trends Data from 14 European Countries

Cataract surgery is the most common surgery performed in the European Union (EU) annually. Analysis of Google Trends (GT) data could give European eye care providers useful information regarding interest in cataract surgery and potential barriers making patients unwilling to undergo surgery.

Data were collected using GT for cataract surgery and the two most related queries, for each of 14 included countries from January 2004 to December 2018. Case volumes were extracted from the Eurostat report for the calendar years 2004-2018.

The most related queries analysis demonstrated surgery outcomes, founding issues and understanding of the disease as potential factors for patients considering cataract surgery. Trend analysis showed that the total search volumes for "cataract surgery" gradually increased over the study period. Also, for "cataract", "after cataract surgery", "cataract surgery NHF" rising trends were revealed. Trends found for "cataract surgery price" and "cataract surgery complications" were inconclusive. Univariate linear regression analysis demonstrated statistically significant correlations between average annual search volumes of "cataract surgery" and the annual volume of cataract surgeries performed in included countries, according to Eurostat data (R 0.889, p = <.001). In addition, univariate linear regression analyses revealed similar, statistically significant correlation for each the most related queries.

To the knowledge of the authors, this is the first and the only analysis of GT data in the ophthalmology literature to date. This study highlights this potentially powerful data set for European eye care providers.