Temporary trends in information search patterns about “Home Care” or hospital care “Hospital Care” through Google

Authors

  • María Sanz-Lorente Centro de Salud Pública de la Consellería de Sanidad Universal y Salud Pública. Manises, España. Universidad Miguel Hernández; Departamento de Salud Pública e Historia de la Ciencia. Sant Joant d´Alacant, Alicante, España.
  • Carmina Wanden-Berghe Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria y Biomédica de Alicante (ISABIAL); Fundación para el Fomento de la Investigación Sanitaria y Biomédica de la Comunitat Valenciana (FISABIO), Alicante, España. Hospital General Universitario, Alicante, España.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.22585/hospdomic.v2i3.47

Keywords:

Home Care Services, Hospital Care, Information Management, Information Literacy, Social Media

Abstract

Objective: To analyse the temporal trends in patterns of search for information about “Home Care” or “Hospital Care” via Google, since 2004 to the present day.

Method: Descriptive cross-sectional study. The data were obtained from the direct query to the Google Trends tool. Search terms “Home Care” and “Hospital Care”. 10-05-2018 consultation date.

Results: The relative search volume (RSV = 100) was reached in January of 2018 for “Home Care” and the minor in 2013 (RSV = 23.08) in the case of “Hospital Care”. The ratio between both terms was 2.85, there were statistical differences between mean values (t of Student = 51.20, gl 344, p < 0.001). The temporal evolution of the term “Home care” presented fit to a linear model (R2 = 0.85 and p < 0.001). In the case of “Hospital care” evolution was slightly decreasing (R2 = 0.19 and p < 0.001). Data obtained and their resulting graphics did not show any landmark that deserves to be highlighted.

Conclusions: It was obtained a growing relative search volume in relation to the term “Home Care”, not with “Hospital Care”, without the presence of any noteworthy milestone. It is considered that the semantics of combined search may be in studies on infoepidemiology, but more works would be needed on the usefulness and limitations of this tool.

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Published

2018-07-30

How to Cite

Sanz-Lorente, M., & Wanden-Berghe, C. (2018). Temporary trends in information search patterns about “Home Care” or hospital care “Hospital Care” through Google. Hospital a Domicilio, 2(3), 93–99. https://doi.org/10.22585/hospdomic.v2i3.47

Issue

Vol. 2 No. 3 (2018)

Section

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