Medical needs and major complaints related to pruritus in Germany: a 4-year retrospective analysis using Google AdWords Keyword Planner.

BACKGROUND: It is difficult to estimate the prevalence of acute and chronic pruritus in the population at large due to a lack of affected persons seeking medical assistance.

OBJECTIVE: To discover the incidence of pruritus in Germany and determine what the most common related complaints are via an analysis of Google's search volume.

METHODS: From June 2013 to April 2017, the Google AdWords Keyword Planner was utilized to select and critically assess relevant keywords for 'pruritus'.

RESULTS: Among a total of 13 691 470 German language Google searches on the topic of pruritus, it was found that the most searched for terms included atopic eczema (24.3%) and the layman's term for psoriasis ('Schuppenflechte'; 17.8%), as well as just psoriasis (13.4%). 'Juckreiz', the German word for pruritus, was determined to be only the sixth most searched for term (2.9%). Anal pruritus and pruritus of the entire body comprised the most searched for localizations. The various factors that impact pruritus, particularly skin conditions and disorders, were established to be among the most searched for terms (72.6%). A decreased monthly search volume was associated with the changing seasons; the summertime had the lowest number of searches for pruritus.

CONCLUSION: The Google search engine analysis provided insight for this study into the unexpectedly large number of unmet medical needs of those suffering from pruritus within Germany, especially that of specific localizations on the body.