Pain Sufferers and Internet Search Behavior



Posted: Monday, July 25, 2005

by
MadTek, LLC

Introduction

Over half of all health seekers using the Internet suffer from chronic conditions, including pain. This is from a Pew Internet and American Life report titled "Vital Decisions" released in May of 2002. Chronic sufferers were more likely to research their condition over the long term than non-chronic sufferers. Much like those facing elective procedures, chronic condition sufferers research more about their condition and bring that research to their doctor.

Pain management has had a strong Internet following

We know this not only through surveys like Pew but also empirically through cached search terms logged by the search engines themselves. We can chart the popularity of Internet searches through this primary data. This list below comes from data compiled by Wordtracker using searches from Dogpile and Metacrawler. The sample was taken from 373 million searches over the last 60 days. The words on this list were all used to find articles related to fibromyalgia. Note some of the keywords highlight related concepts such as "woman" and "sleep".

Related keywords for fibromyalgia
Rank Search Term
1. fibromyalgia
2. Fibromyalgia
3. pain
4. disability
5. fibrositis
6. fatigue
7. chronic pain
8. fms
9. treatment
10. FM
11. cfs
12. woman
13. fibromyalgia treatment
14. cfids
15. sleep

Search Strategies for Pain Sufferers

If we were to dig deeper, we would find longer and more interesting keyword phrases being used by the same health seekers to find information. On the Overture network, a large collection of websites using pay-per-click marketing, the following were searches and frequencies of the term "fibromyalgia".

Searches done in April 2005
Chronic Condition
Count Search Term
 170297  fibromyalgia
 13962  fibromyalgia symptom
 6169  fibromyalgia treatment
 3574  fibromyalgia syndrome
 2141  fibromyalgia diet
 1789  fibromyalgia pain
 1771  fibromyalgia relief
 1622  cymbalta fibromyalgia
 1386  fibromyalgia information
 1300  fibromyalgia pain relief
 1087  fibromyalgia disability
 1060  fibromyalgia medication
 993  fibromyalgia cure
 944  fibromyalgia symptom treatment
 928  fibromyalgia support group
 778  fibromyalgia exercise
 756  fibromyalgia support
 700  fibromyalgia network
 700  fibromyalgia trigger point
 683  fibromyalgia doctor
Searches done in April 2005
Non-Chronic Condition
Count Search Term
 15742  wound
 8841  wound care
 2324  gunshot wound
 2174  wound vac
 2078  exit wound
 2063  wound healing
 1596  open wound
 1079  wound management
 1026  wound infection
 865  gun shot wound
 798  puncture wound
 775  wound care center
 676  picture of gunshot wound
 655  wound dressing
 654  bullet wound
 599  wound care product
 549  kci wound vac
 478  stab wound
 470  nurse with wound
 446  wound treatment
Search terms were as frequent for this chronic condition as for more common and less chronic problems such as "wound". Using this search term data and reading the Pew "Vital Decisions" May 2002 paper allows one to draw some conclusions about search behavior and chronic condition suffers like those afflicted with fibromyalgia.

1. More like to research condition online
2. Search terms often include filters for ongoing long term treatment
3. Search terms may include filters for life style changes to accommodate condition
4. More searches are done on medical topics by those suffering from chronic versus non-chronic conditions Jason M. Hare
http://www.madtek.com
MadTek Managed Portal and Consulting Solutions

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