0404 DIURNAL PATTERNS OF INSOMNIA INTERNET SEARCH QUERIES: AN ANALYSIS OF GOOGLE TRENDS DATA

Abstract

Patients frequently use the Internet as a source of information regarding their symptoms or health conditions. As a result, timing of search engine query data has been used to investigate patterns of illness symptomatology. Since insomnia typically occurs at night and may be exacerbated by environmental conditions such as light emitted from computing screens, search queries for insomnia may reflect both patterns of symptoms as well as a factor that perpetuates insomnia complaints. Hourly normalized search volume (NSV) for the search term “insomnia” was acquired utilizing Google Trends over a one-week interval from 11/21/16 to 11/28/16, the largest output for which hourly NSV is available. Diurnal patterns in NSV were examined for the United States, as well as separately in highly populated states spanning different time zones. Diurnal patterns for insomnia search queries were also examined in other representative countries with high search volumes for convergent validity. ANOVA was utilized to examine effects of time (hour of day) for insomnia NSV. Timing of peak insomnia NSV (normalized to clock time for each location) was examined for each state/country. Additional data from 11/28/16 to 12/05/16 and 12/05/16 to 12/12/16 were utilized to confirm findings through replication. Highly significant differences in insomnia NSV times across the 24-hour day were observed for all countries and states examined (all p<0.0001). Insomnia NSV demonstrated a robust diurnal pattern, with peaks in search volumes occurring between 02:00 and 04:00 in all locations. Results were confirmed in replicative analyses. Peaks in insomnia search queries during the middle of the night suggest patients are utilizing the Internet at the time they are experiencing symptoms. Future research that examines the impact of Internet use on insomnia symptoms, and how timing of Internet use may impact outcomes of Internet-based insomnia therapies are warranted. N/A