Background: Acne is a common skin disease primarily affecting young adults. Given that internet has become a major source of health information especially among the young, internet has a significant influence on patients.
Objectives: To clarify the features of patients’ interest and to evaluate the quality of information about acne on internet.
Methods: We compared the search volumes in acne with those of other dermatologic diseases using Google Trends from Jan 2004 to Aug 2019. We also figured out the search volumes for relevant keywords of acne on Google and Naver, evaluating the quality of answers to the queries in KnowledgeiN.
Results: The regression analyses of Google Trends data demonstrated that the patients’ interest of acne was higher than that of other dermatologic diseases such as atopic dermatitis(β=-20.33, p<0.05) and urticaria(β=-27.09, p<0.05) and has increased yearly(β=2.38, p<0.05), also there was difference between summer and spring(β =-5.04, p<0.05) and between weekend and weekdays(β =-6.68, p<0.05). The most frequently searched relevant keywords were Food, Hormone, Laser in Naver whereas Cosmetics, Food, Laser in Google in order. Among food, Milk and Wheat in Naver and Coffee and Ramen were the two highest acne-related keywords in Google. The queries in KnowledgeiN were mostly answered by public(66%), whereas only 17% by dermatologists.
Conclusion: Physicians should be aware of patients’ interest and belief on acne to provide best education and care both online and in clinic.