Abstract
Background
Lockdowns due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic forced many dental offices to be closed. This study aims to investigate the association between COVID-19 imposed lockdowns and online searches for toothache using Google Trends (GT).
Methods
We investigated GT online searches for the term “toothache” within the past 5 years. The time frame for data gathering was considered as the initiation and end dates of national/regional lockdowns in each country. We used 1-way analysis of variance to identify statistical differences in relative search volumes (RSVs) between 2020 and 2016-2019 for each country.
Results
Overall, 16 countries were included in our analyses. Among all countries, Indonesia (n = 100), Jamaica (n = 56), Philippines (n = 56), Iran (n = 52), and Turkey (47) had the highest RSVs for toothache in the specified period. Compared with the previous 4 years, higher RSVs were seen in the world (as a whole) (2020 RSVs, 94.4; vs 2019 RSVs, 77.8 [ P < 0.001]) and 13 countries (81.3% of the included countries).
Conclusion
Generally, searching for the term “toothache” showed an increase during the COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020 compared with the past 4 years. This can imply the importance of dental care as urgent medical care during public health emergencies such as COVID-19.
Keywords: Toothache, COVID-19, Google Trends, Health Care Seeking Behaviour, Lockdown
↑What is “already known” in this topic:
During the first lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many dental offices around the world stopped operating to help contain the spread of the virus. As a result, accessibility of dental care diminished significantly.
→What this article adds:
During the first lockdown, people in the majority of countries searched for toothache more than ever, which can mean that people sought dental care online; thus, such care should be taken into consideration in health plans in emergencies.
Introduction
Since December 2019, a soaring pandemic of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has paved its way through the world. Nearly 1 month later, the disease was announced as a public health emergency of international concern by the World Health Organization (WHO) (1). Devastating consequences of COVID-19 go beyond clinical symptoms, and other deteriorations have been addressed in the literature as well. These could be of various types, including health care provision problems (2). One of the leading health issues among the public is dental pain. Dental pain or toothache can affect the quality of life and disrupt individual and/or social life (3). Toothache is the most common complaint expressed by individuals according to several studies (4). Irreversible pulpal/apical pathology was the most common diagnosis in a tertiary hospital located in the UK's COVID-19 pandemic epicenter, according to a study evaluating the quality of the institution's services (63.4% of all diagnoses) (5). Accordingly, immediate access to a reliable pain relief source seems to be necessary.
This can be of even more concern when people cannot easily access their dental practitioners. In several countries, dental offices have been closed or restricted in terms of practice hours because of the pandemic, and triage systems have been put in place in many to reduce nonemergency and aerosol-generating procedures (6). Issuance of several clinical guidelines and restrictive protocols by major regulatory organisations might be another cause for limited access to dentists during this outbreak (7). Even in communities that these restrictions were not implemented, little public transports might have lowered individuals’ chances of seeing their dentists.
Google Trends (GT) can be used to assess implicit consequences of COVID-19 or any other possible public health emergencies. GT uses the Google Search queries by all people around the world and provides the summary statistics of the searches for each word or word combination globally, nationally, and subnationally. This platform has already been proven as a reliable pubic surveillance tool for epidemiological studies (8). It was used as an indicator of influenza outbreak and has been similarly applicable for predicting national COVID-19 outbreaks (9).
Obtaining the most comprehensive results is an essential step while searching through the GT service. While certain nations at this time had restricted access to dental care and emergency treatment, toothaches are still seen as a condition that should be given immediate attention and care in all nations. We realised that there is a range of search terms used to describe dental problems, for example, toothache, tooth pain, tooth decay, dental caries, and et cetera. We intended to use 1 term to minimize variations in the choice of search. Knowing that toothache and tooth pain are the most common symptoms in dental patients and could cause some major complications in habitual and/or working activities, they were considered the main representatives for dental needs (4). Thus, we considered the term “toothache” as a suitable keyword to assess the online GT search queries related to dental pain among the public. Similar studies regarding different aspects of oral health during the COVID-19 pandemic has been published (10, 11).
This study sought to assess the association between the lockdowns due to COVID-19 and online searches for toothache using GT. This can be used as a surrogate outcome for dental needs of the people during the lockdowns. Our research question was as follows:
Considering the disparities in internet access between the included nations, did differences in relative search volumes (RSVs) for toothache rise during COVID-19 lockdowns in comparison to the same period in the previous 4 years in those countries?
Methods
Using GT, we looked into internet search behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns. This web service determines the proportion of searches for a user-specified term among all searches performed on Google Search. It then provides a relative search volume (RSV), which is the query share of a particular term for a given location and period, normalized by the highest query share of that term over the time series and presented on a scale from 0 to 100 (12), with 100 indicating the highest searches for a specific time and 0 no searches in that specific time. RSV is shown as the “interest” value on the GT website.
We selected “toothache” as a “topic” in the GT search box. After that, we gathered worldwide RSVs for toothache in the GT platform. Turning to a country-level search, from 187 countries that reported data regarding the COVID-19 death tolls, we included the ones that fell in the highest 10% of the deaths per 100,000 due to COVID-19 (till July 14, 2020, data retrieved from: worldometers.info/coronavirus) (N = 18). We gathered RSVs data for each country in the past 5 years and segregated it into 3 consequent months from the date of national lockdown due to COVID-19 onwards (12 weeks) (13 ).
Given that the lockdowns commenced on March 15, 2020, in most countries, we considered the same date as the initiating point of the “time range” in GT searches. From 2016 to 2019, we conducted the same search using a comparable time frame. We also checked RSVs for all countries in the world in this period and plotted a heat world map using Excel 2019.
We normalized the data based on each country's reported internet penetration rate from 2016 to 2020 because internet access has likely changed over the past 5 years. We plotted the trend of “toothache” for each country from 5 years ago till the end of lockdowns in 2020. A 1-way analysis of variance was then performed to identify whether there was a statistical difference for RSV scores between the year 2020 and 2016-2019 for each country. Statistical analyses were done using Python Version 3.6.7 (2018-10-20) (Python Software Foundation http://www.python.org) on Google Colab.
Results
During this period of worldwide lockdown, Indonesia (n = 100), Jamaica (n = 56), Philippines (n = 56), Iran (n = 52), Turkey (n = 47), and Oman (n = 34) had the highest RSVs for toothache. Colombia (n = 3), South Korea (n = 3), Argentina (n = 4), Peru (n = 6), Japan (n = 6), and Finland (n = 6) had the lowest RSVs. Most African and central Asian countries did not provide any data (Figure 1).
Figure 1.
World heat map for toothache RSVs during 15/3/2020-7/6/2020.

San Marino and Andora did not have any GT data and were therefore omitted from our included countries. Thus, 16 countries remained in our analyses. Among our target countries, Belgium and Switzerland had the highest and lowest deaths/million, respectively (844.5 and 227.4, respectively). Only Sweden had not introduced any lockdowns in the given time range, whereas the other countries had lockdowns with different extents (city [n = 1], state [n = 3], national [n = 11]) and strategies (complete lockdown [n = 12], restriction [n = 2], intelligent lockdown [n = 1]). The median of the start and end date of the lockdowns were March 19, 2020, and May, 10, 2020, respectively. Full details of the characteristics of the included countries are shown in Appendix 1.
Thirteen nations, as well as the entire world, displayed higher RSV levels in 2020 when compared to the mean of the preceding 4 years (Table 1). Sweden, the Netherlands, and Ecuador showed lower RSVs in 2020 compared with the each of the previous years (Table 2). Figure 1 illustrates the worldwide RSVs trend during 3 months after the lockdowns in 2020 and the same period in the past 4 years (see Appendix 2 for countries’ trends in the same time range), and RSVs trend in the past 5 years is shown in Figure 2 (see Appendix 3 for countries’ trends in the same time range). Figure 3 shows the global RSVs trend for the past five years before the pandemic.
Table 1. Results of the ANOVA test on the RSV values for the term “Toothache” in a worldwide scale and the included countries.
| Country | 2020 with 2019-6 | 2020 with 2019 | 2020 with 2018 | 2020 with 2017 | 2020 with 2016 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| F | P | F | P | F | P | F | P | F | P | |
| World | 3243.9 | <0.001 | 2380.5 | <0.001 | 2565.8 | <0.001 | 2948.2 | <0.001 | 3328.2 | <0.001 |
| Belgium | 3.9 | 0.053 | 1.8 | 0.194 | 1.2 | 0.289 | 2.5 | 0.129 | 5.2 | 0.033 |
| UK | 130.7 | <0.001 | 55.5 | <0.001 | 63.2 | <0.001 | 105.8 | <0.001 | 131.9 | <0.001 |
| Spain | 54.0 | <0.001 | 31.3 | <0.001 | 27.5 | <0.001 | 31.0 | <0.001 | 12.2 | 0.002 |
| Italy | 204.0 | <0.001 | 76.1 | <0.001 | 70.2 | <0.001 | 74.9 | <0.001 | 85.4 | <0.001 |
| Sweden | 0.4 | 0.519 | 0.1 | 0.704 | 3.9 | 0.059 | 0.2 | 0.640 | <0.1 | 0.878 |
| France | 112.4 | <0.001 | 55.5 | <0.001 | 56.0 | <0.001 | 84.3 | <0.001 | 41.5 | <0.001 |
| USA | 120.2 | <0.001 | 62.8 | <0.001 | 72.1 | <0.001 | 105.3 | <0.001 | 152.5 | <0.001 |
| Chile | 6.0 | 0.017 | 3.1 | 0.094 | 9.7 | 0.005 | 1.5 | 0.239 | 7.3 | 0.012 |
| Netherlands | 0.2 | 0.673 | 0.2 | 0.648 | 1.9 | 0.187 | <0.1 | 0.838 | 0.3 | 0.599 |
| Ireland | 7.9 | 0.007 | 2.0 | 0.174 | 3.9 | 0.060 | 4.6 | 0.044 | 6.6 | 0.017 |
| Brazil | 429.7 | <0.001 | 552.2 | <0.001 | 680.8 | <0.001 | 739.4 | <0.001 | 1198.4 | <0.001 |
| Ecuador | 0.6 | 0.431 | <0.1 | 0.915 | 1.2 | 0.280 | <0.1 | 0.812 | 3.6 | 0.007 |
| Mexico | 36.9 | <0.001 | 21.4 | <0.001 | 22.8 | <0.001 | 28.2 | <0.001 | 14.0 | 0.001 |
| Canada | 38.0 | <0.001 | 10.4 | 0.004 | 24.7 | <0.001 | 23.3 | <0.001 | 46.4 | <0.001 |
| Switzerland | 2.1 | 0.154 | 1.9 | 0.185 | 3.4 | 0.079 | <0.1 | 0.774 | 2.4 | 0.137 |
| Armenia | 26.8 | <0.001 | 14.7 | <0.001 | 26.2 | <0.001 | 13.8 | <0.001 | 33.3 | <0.001 |
| Portugal | 5.4 | 0.023 | 3.9 | 0.062 | 3.4 | 0.078 | 0.4 | 0.534 | 4.9 | 0.037 |
| Iran | 99.2 | <0.001 | 38.7 | <0.001 | 34.6 | <0.001 | 50.0 | <0.001 | 99.0 | <0.001 |
| Germany | 20.0 | <0.001 | 22.5 | <0.001 | 14.8 | <0.001 | 10.9 | 0.003 | 7.8 | 0.010 |
| Colombia | 12.0 | <0.001 | 2.5 | 0.126 | 6.9 | 0.015 | 7.6 | 0.012 | 7.7 | 0.011 |
| Denmark | 2.6 | 0.110 | 0.2 | 0.651 | 1.5 | 0.230 | 0.9 | 0.348 | 12.1 | 0.002 |
| Romania | 19.8 | <0.001 | 7.0 | 0.014 | 8.1 | 0.009 | 6.8 | 0.016 | 9.3 | 0.006 |
RSV, relative search volume; F, F-value; P, P value.
Table 2. Mean RSV Values for the Term “Toothache” by Country for Each Year Between 2016 and 2020.
| Country | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| World | 94.4 | 77.8 | 73.6 | 71.9 | 66.3 |
| Belgium | 32.4 | 30.2 | 30.5 | 26.8 | 24.4 |
| UK | 88.7 | 72 | 68.6 | 63.2 | 59.9 |
| Spain | 79.2 | 64.1 | 64.8 | 64.9 | 70.7 |
| Italy | 69.8 | 59.1 | 60.8 | 63 | 60.1 |
| Sweden | 51.2 | 52.5 | 45.9 | 52.6 | 56.2 |
| France | 81.1 | 65.6 | 66.7 | 61.4 | 70.3 |
| USA | 87.3 | 83.5 | 82.7 | 78.2 | 71.7 |
| Chile | 64.1 | 59.1 | 55.3 | 64.6 | 55.2 |
| Netherlands | 55.9 | 54.5 | 62.7 | 55.5 | 58.7 |
| Ireland | 69.7 | 67.7 | 63.3 | 61.9 | 61.3 |
| Brazil | 92.9 | 74 | 64.7 | 58 | 49.7 |
| Ecuador | 21 | 27.1 | 20.2 | 30.1 | 14.8 |
| Mexico | 21.2 | 18.3 | 18.5 | 18 | 19.2 |
| Canada | 85.5 | 78.5 | 69.8 | 71.6 | 62.8 |
| Switzerland | 43.4 | 41.8 | 36.8 | 45.7 | 39.1 |
| Armenia | 36.3 | 17 | 12.7 | 18.7 | 8.5 |
| Portugal | 43.6 | 39.1 | 39.2 | 48.8 | 37.3 |
| Iran | 78.5 | 68.9 | 68.7 | 61.6 | 49.1 |
| Germany | 68 | 65.3 | 67 | 68.9 | 69.9 |
| Colombia | 23.6 | 23.7 | 16.3 | 16.3 | 16.6 |
| Denmark | 34.3 | 32.8 | 29.8 | 30.1 | 23.8 |
| Romania | 52.3 | 46.8 | 45.9 | 47.8 | 43.6 |
RSV, relative search volume.
Figure 2.
Worldwide RSVs trend in 3 months post lockdown in 2020 and the same time range in 2016-2019.

Figure 3.
Worldwide RSVs trend for past 5 years (equation: y = 0.0129x - 480.09).
Discussion
Pandemic fear and death anxiety have already been suggested as major factors that negatively influence the public’s mental health during the COVID-19 era (14). Additionally, dentistry has widely been described as a high-risk medical profession for viral infections, including COVID-19 (15, 16). This idea may cause fear and anxiety, which will decrease the number of people seeking dental treatment and the number of dentists who can provide it (6). Moreover, in some countries, dental services are predominantly provided by the private sector (17, 18) and regulations also introduced restrictions to public services or both public and private services. There may be a vacuum in the availability of dental services in some places if private practitioners decide not to offer them during the pandemic (19). Regulatory restrictions to halt the viral spread could further limit and/or change access to dental services during the outbreak (20).
Since various restrictive health policies (social distancing, national lockdowns, restrictive professional protocols, etc) have been issued in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in different regions, the lockdowns have generally been of various types. Political position, cultural tendencies, economic resiliency, and health care system development have all been mentioned as major role players in determining the counteracts to COVID-19 in each country and/or region (21-24).
Through our literature review, very few studies were found to determine dental care-seeking behaviour (CSB) in patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. There were only 2 studies, one of which assessed dental challenges and needs of the population in some Western countries (11), and the other was limited to Iran (10). Another study assessed the internet search trends of Filipinos’ oral health-seeking behaviour from 2010 to 2020 ( 25). According to their results, the Philippines’ most prevalent oral health problems were dental caries and edentulism. Obtaining clinical answers from a user-friendly platform like Google was emphasized in our study. Another assessment of online search trends for common oral problems reported the term “toothache” to be the highest-searched query in GT between 2004 and 2014 (26). All in all, the term “toothache” has already been considered to be a suitable keyword to assess the online CSB for dental issues among the public.
Our study aimed to evaluate the association between COVID-19 imposed lockdowns and global online searches for toothache using the GT platform. Among the 16 primary countries in our analyses, 13 presented higher RSV values (for the keyword “toothache”) in 2020 compared with the mean RSVs in the past 4 years. These results partly reinforce our hypothesis about the major role of the COVID-19 pandemic on accessibility to dental service during the government-imposed curfews and lockdowns. This also has been investigated in a previous study that examined online searches for toothache in Iran during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown (10).
Lower online search RSVs for toothache in 3 countries (Sweden, Netherlands, and Ecuador) out of 16 could be related to CSB alterations among the population. As we stated in the results, Sweden was among the countries that did not introduce any lockdowns. In Sweden, it has been demonstrated that CSB is related to a number of sociodemographic characteristics, including income, educational attainment, and type of dwelling (27). Accordingly, whether an individual seeks information from online databases (using GT) generally differs among various regions and individuals. A possible explanation for the lower RSVs for toothache in 2020 in all these countries could be that the public might have answered their clinical questions using other resources, for instance, asking their dentists by phone or even attending a public dental emergency centre to receive the dental care (28, 29). The mean use of Google Search Engine is reported to be above 95% for all these countries (data from: https://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share). Accordingly, the difference in search engine market share cannot be suggested as a possible cause for this issue.
We tried to utilize a comprehensive and pragmatic methodology so that the least number of online searches would be neglected. By selecting “toothache” as a “topic” in GT, we ensured to cover any lexical, semantic, and grammatical nuances during translation and language alterations. The population that made up the data sample cannot be precisely defined, hence data produced from GT should be interpreted with caution. Prompt fluctuations in searching trend can also occur due to media and news agendas (locally or broader aspects). Additionally, it can never be traced if one had searched a term out of curiosity or to address their personal health needs. The internet accessibility bias, which essentially relates to differences in internet access across various social groups, is another inherent bias (based on their demographic status, namely literacy level, socioeconomic status, age, etc.).
Conclusion
When compared to the previous 4 years, online searches for the term "toothache" increased in more than 80% of the countries we chose to study during the COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020, which may be a sign that more people will worry about their dental needs during the pandemic era when many dental clinics were forced to close their doors to treat the patients. Accordingly, addressing dental health care as a highly-sought-after medical need is of utter importance during public health emergencies like COVID-19. To do so, health policymakers should be informed about the importance of dental care and be preprepared for situations like lockdowns.
Abbreviations
COVID-19: coronavirus disease-2019; WHO: World Health Organization; CSB: Care seeking behaviour; GT: Google Trends; RSV: relative search volume.
Availability of Data and Materials
The datasets generated during the current study are available in the figshare repository, https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.13142558.
Authors’ Contributions.
A.S-M. wrote and revised the manuscript and interpreted the data. E.S. conceived, designed, conducted, and supervised the study, interpreted the data, and wrote and revised the manuscript. P.G. interpreted the data and revised the manuscript. M.N. wrote and revised the manuscript. B.M. wrote and revised the manuscript.
Conflict of Interests
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Acknowledgements
None.
Appendix 1.
Full details of the characteristics of the included countries .
| Countries | SDI | GDPPerCapita | Population | Deaths | LDScope | YLD | DentistsDensity | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Belgium | High | 46116.7 | 11,589,623 | 844 | National | 288.8 | 10.47 | ||
| UK | High | 42300.27 | 67,886,011 | 660 | National | 234.3 | 4.49 | ||
| Spain | High-middle | 29613.67 | 46,754,778 | 608 | National | 201.3 | 2.64 | ||
| Italy | High | 33189.57 | 60,461,826 | 578 | National | 182.2 | 7.82 | ||
| Sweden | High | 51610.07 | 10,099,265 | 548 | Non national | 246.1 | 7.9 | ||
| France | High | 40493.93 | 65,273,511 | 460 | National | 210.8 | 6.57 | ||
| USA | High | 65280.68 | 331,002,651 | 418 | Non national | 213.3 | 4.77 | ||
| Chile | High-middle | 14896.45 | 19,116,201 | 367 | Non national | 278.1 | 0.006 | ||
| Netherlands | High | 52447.83 | 17,134,872 | 358 | National | 271.1 | 4.1 | ||
| Ireland | High | 78660.96 | 4,937,786 | 353 | National | 270.4 | 5.02 | ||
| Brazil | Middle | 8717.186 | 212,559,417 | 343 | Non national | 345.5 | 11.17 | ||
| Ecuador | High-middle | 6183.824 | 17,643,054 | 287 | National | 328.2 | 1.41 | ||
| Mexico | High-middle | 9863.073 | 128,932,753 | 275 | National | 339.5 | 0.94 | ||
| Canada | High | 46194.73 | 37,742,154 | 233 | Non national | 217.8 | 6.39 | ||
| Switzerland | High | 81993.73 | 8,654,622 | 227 | National | 218 | 4.78 | ||
| Armenia | High-middle | 4622.733 | 2,963,243 | 196 | National | 344.5 | 1.69 | ||
| North Macedonia | High-middle | 6093.148 | 2,083,374 | 185 | National | 247.6 | |||
| Portugal | High-middle | 23145.04 | 10,196,709 | 163 | National | 234 | 10.12 | ||
| Iran | Middle | 5520.311 | 83,992,949 | 157 | National | 228.9 | 1.35 | ||
| Germany | High | 46258.88 | 83,783,942 | 109 | National | 248.1 | 6.65 | ||
| Colombia | High-middle | 6432.388 | 50,882,891 | 107 | National | 337.5 | 5.07 | ||
| Denmark | High | 59822.09 | 5,792,202 | 105 | National | 293.3 | 7.44 | ||
| Romania | High-middle | 12919.53 | 19,237,691 | 100 | National | 261.4 | 3.19 | ||
| Countries | Estimated Individual Internet Access at 2020 | Density | FertilityRate | MediumAge | Migants | UrbanPercent | avg2016 | avg2017 | avg2018 |
| Belgium | 91.007 | 383 | 1.7 | 42 | 48,000 | 98 | 24.41667 | 26.79167 | 30.54167 |
| UK | 96.6467 | 281 | 1.8 | 40 | 260,650 | 83 | 59.88333 | 63.20833 | 68.625 |
| Spain | 88.5826 | 94 | 1.3 | 45 | 40,000 | 80 | 70.65833 | 64.94167 | 64.79167 |
| Italy | 70.5736 | 206 | 1.3 | 47 | 148,943 | 69 | 60.08333 | 62.99167 | 60.825 |
| Sweden | 92.9088 | 25 | 1.9 | 41 | 40,000 | 88 | 56.15833 | 52.575 | 45.93333 |
| France | 82.0961 | 119 | 1.9 | 42 | 36,527 | 82 | 70.325 | 61.375 | 66.675 |
| USA | 87.22 | 36 | 1.8 | 38 | 954,806 | 83 | 71.73333 | 78.18333 | 82.69167 |
| Chile | 90.9688 | 26 | 1.7 | 35 | 111,708 | 85 | 55.16667 | 64.58333 | 55.25 |
| Netherlands | 99.1698 | 508 | 1.7 | 43 | 16,000 | 92 | 58.66667 | 55.53333 | 62.73333 |
| Ireland | 89.4875 | 72 | 1.8 | 38 | 23,604 | 63 | 61.25 | 61.93333 | 63.325 |
| Brazil | 75.2077 | 25 | 1.7 | 33 | 21,200 | 88 | 49.74167 | 57.99167 | 64.69167 |
| Ecuador | 75.5527 | 71 | 2.4 | 28 | 36,400 | 63 | 14.83333 | 30.08333 | 20.16667 |
| Mexico | 74.3396 | 66 | 2.1 | 29 | -60,000 | 84 | 19.18333 | 17.95833 | 18.53333 |
| Canada | 94.3148 | 4 | 1.5 | 41 | 242,032 | 81 | 62.83333 | 71.55 | 69.79167 |
| Switzerland | 91.2909 | 219 | 1.5 | 43 | 52,000 | 74 | 39.14167 | 45.66667 | 36.825 |
| Armenia | 86.7075 | 104 | 1.8 | 35 | -4,998 | 63 | 8.5 | 18.66667 | 12.66667 |
| North Macedonia | 83.1972 | 83 | 1.5 | 39 | -1,000 | 59 | 9.166667 | 25.26667 | 14.01667 |
| Portugal | 79.7982 | 111 | 1.3 | 46 | -6,000 | 66 | 37.25 | 48.75 | 39.16667 |
| Iran | 78.7289 | 52 | 2.2 | 32 | -55,000 | 76 | 49.13333 | 61.64167 | 68.675 |
| Germany | 88.9143 | 240 | 1.6 | 46 | 543,822 | 76 | 69.90833 | 68.875 | 66.98333 |
| Colombia | 71.2225 | 46 | 1.8 | 31 | 204,796 | 80 | 16.58333 | 16.25 | 16.33333 |
| Denmark | 98.7987 | 137 | 1.8 | 42 | 15,200 | 88 | 23.75 | 30.08333 | 29.83333 |
| Romania | 74.4037 | 84 | 1.6 | 43 | -73,999 | 55 | 43.59167 | 47.79167 | 45.90833 |
| Countries | avg2019 | avg2020 | Search Ratio | Sex ratio | Education Index-2015 | AverageIncome | LD duration | DentalExpenditure PerCapita | |
| Belgium | 30.24167 | 32.35833 | 1.155741 | 0.97 | 0.841 | 45,870 | 48 | 202.28 | |
| UK | 71.95 | 88.70833 | 1.345765 | 0.99 | 0.896 | 41,790 | 104 | 220.59 | |
| Spain | 64.075 | 79.175 | 1.197504 | 0.98 | 0.818 | 29,300 | 57 | 105.31 | |
| Italy | 59.05 | 69.79167 | 1.14907 | 0.93 | 0.814 | 33,740 | 71 | 293.66 | |
| Sweden | 52.45 | 51.18333 | 0.988493 | 1 | 0.855 | 55,540 | 0 | 321.16 | |
| France | 65.65 | 81.06667 | 1.228167 | 0.96 | 0.839 | 41,090 | 56 | 169.78 | |
| USA | 83.46667 | 87.29167 | 1.104696 | 0.97 | 0.9 | 63,170 | 118 | 370.47 | |
| Chile | 59.08333 | 64.08333 | 1.095052 | 0.97 | 0.784 | 14,670 | 118 | 6.27 | |
| Netherlands | 54.53333 | 55.86667 | 0.965438 | 0.98 | 0.897 | 51,260 | 124 | 221.67 | |
| Ireland | 67.71667 | 69.65 | 1.09588 | 1 | 0.91 | 61,210 | 68 | 293.64 | |
| Brazil | 74.00833 | 92.90833 | 1.508048 | 0.97 | 0.681 | 9,080 | 55 | 2.34 | |
| Ecuador | 27.08333 | 21 | 0.911392 | 0.99 | 0.665 | 6,110 | 16 | 1.62 | |
| Mexico | 18.31667 | 21.15833 | 1.143823 | 0.96 | 0.655 | 9,180 | 71 | 2.55 | |
| Canada | 78.525 | 85.49167 | 1.209645 | 0.98 | 0.991 | 44,950 | 49 | 338.38 | |
| Switzerland | 41.78333 | 43.43333 | 1.063131 | 0.98 | 0.891 | 84,450 | 37 | 70.47 | |
| Armenia | 17 | 36.25 | 2.55132 | 0.95 | 0.73 | 41 | 5.04 | ||
| North Macedonia | 20.85 | 16.625 | 0.959596 | 0.99 | 0.673 | 66 | 11.05 | ||
| Portugal | 39.08333 | 43.58333 | 1.06139 | 0.9 | 0.756 | 21,980 | 14 | 75.94 | |
| Iran | 68.9 | 78.525 | 1.264747 | 1.03 | 0.704 | 5,470 | 37 | 41.47 | |
| Germany | 65.325 | 68.00833 | 1.003474 | 0.96 | 0.914 | 47,110 | 48 | 473.5 | |
| Colombia | 23.66667 | 23.58333 | 1.295195 | 0.98 | 0.63 | 6,180 | 97 | 3.68 | |
| Denmark | 32.75 | 34.33333 | 1.179671 | 0.99 | 0.923 | 60,170 | 31 | 169.7 | |
| Romania | 46.8 | 52.31667 | 1.136753 | 0.95 | 0.769 | 11,300 | 48 | 15.85 | |
| Countries | DentalExpenditurePerCapitaPPP | NationalLockdown | HDI | ||||||
| Belgium | 219 | 1 | 0.919 | ||||||
| UK | 203.38 | 1 | 0.92 | ||||||
| Spain | 139.6 | 1 | 0.893 | ||||||
| Italy | 293.66 | 1 | 0.883 | ||||||
| Sweden | 321.16 | 0 | 0.937 | ||||||
| France | 184.58 | 1 | 0.891 | ||||||
| USA | 370.47 | 0 | 0.92 | ||||||
| Chile | 6.27 | 0 | 0.847 | ||||||
| Netherlands | 241.59 | 1 | 0.933 | ||||||
| Ireland | 306.72 | 1 | 0.942 | ||||||
| Brazil | 4.24 | 0 | 0.761 | ||||||
| Ecuador | 3.03 | 1 | 0.758 | ||||||
| Mexico | 4.88 | 1 | 0.767 | ||||||
| Canada | 352.15 | 0 | 0.922 | ||||||
| Switzerland | 70.47 | 1 | 0.946 | ||||||
| Armenia | 10.45 | 1 | 0.76 | ||||||
| North Macedonia | 31.68 | 1 | 0.759 | ||||||
| Portugal | 110.5 | 1 | 0.85 | ||||||
| Iran | 140.82 | 1 | 0.797 | ||||||
| Germany | 473.5 | 1 | 0.939 | ||||||
| Colombia | 3.68 | 1 | 0.761 | ||||||
| Denmark | 149.99 | 1 | 0.93 | ||||||
| Romania | 36.94 | 1 | 0.816 |
Appendix 2.
RSVs trends for each country 2020-2016
Belgium
|
UK
|
Spain
|
Italy
|
Sweden
|
France
|
USA
|
Chile
|
Netherlands
|
Irland
|
Brazil
|
Equador
|
Mexico
|
Canada
|
Switzerland
|
Appendix 3.
RSVs trends for the past five years in each country 2020-2016
Belgium
|
UK
|
Spain
|
Italy
|
Sweden
|
France
|
USA
|
Chile
|
Netherlands
|
Irland
|
Brazil
|
Equador
|
Mexico
|
Canada
|
Switzerland
|
Cite this article as : Sofi-Mahmudi A, Shamsoddin E, Ghasemi P, Nasser M, Mesgarpour B. Assessing Google Searches for Toothache during COVID-19 Lockdowns. Med J Islam Repub Iran. 2023 (11 Apr);37:36. https://doi.org/10.47176/mjiri.37.36
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Associated Data
This section collects any data citations, data availability statements, or supplementary materials included in this article.
Data Availability Statement
The datasets generated during the current study are available in the figshare repository, https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.13142558.

