Trends of influenza’s symptoms drug search terms in Indonesian-language using google trends in the covid-19 pandemic

Covid-19 has spread globally which cause severe acute respiratory syndrome. The symptoms of covid-19 have similarity with influenza, such as cough, fever, runny nose, and sore throat. Therefore, the internet sources tend to have an increasing searching related to influenza symptoms drugs. The aim of this study was to assess the searching trend of influenza’s symptoms drug using google trend analysis in Indonesia. This study was explored google trend analysis using search terms in Indonesian language related with influenza’s symptoms drugs from 6 December 2020 to 30 November 2021. The positive confirmed cases were obtained from Indonesian government website covid.go.id. The results demonstrated the increasing search terms related to influenza drug’s symptoms during July and August. The highest term search was “obat batuk”. The positive covid-19 confirmed cases in Indonesia increased during July and August. During the peak of covid-19 outbreak in Indonesia on July-August 2021, there were increasing of google trends searching related to influenza’s drug symptoms.


INTRODUCTION Abstract
Covid-19 has spread globally which cause severe acute respiratory syndrome. The symptoms of covid-19 have similarity with influenza, such as cough, fever, runny nose, and sore throat. Therefore, the internet sources tend to have an increasing searching related to influenza symptoms drugs. The aim of this study was to assess the searching trend of influenza's symptoms drug using google trend analysis in Indonesia. This study was explored google trend analysis using search terms in Indonesian language related with influenza's symptoms drugs from 6 December 2020 to 30 November 2021. The positive confirmed cases were obtained from Indonesian government website covid.go.id. The results demonstrated the increasing search terms related to influenza drug's symptoms during July and August. The highest term search was "obat batuk". The positive covid-19 confirmed cases in Indonesia increased during July and August. During the peak of covid-19 outbreak in Indonesia on July-August 2021, there were increasing of google trends searching related to influenza's drug symptoms.
Celebes) also found that during the Covid-19 pandemic, people tended to do self-medication comparing to visit healt center services or hospitals (11). A qualitative study in Makassar, Indonesia also found that the increasing trends of self-medication because people were afraid to visit hospital. They also thought that medicine from drug store could cure their diseases, such as influenza's symptoms (12). In Indonesia, the self-medication was used for influenza's symptoms (such as fever, headache, and cough), diarrhea, acute pain, and maag (13,14).
During the Covid-19 pandemic, the top three of disease that curing by self-medication in Indonesia were fever, flu, and cough. People got the information related to the medication from family, friends, or internet (12, 15).
Nowadays, the internet is popular for source of health information. One of internet that can be used for searching of health care information is Google Trends.
Since 2004, Google Trends is used to explore web behavior topics or terms. In Google Trends, users can use up to five topics or terms and the result will be displayed as a set of time series (16). Google trends has become a powerful tool to demonstrate an epidemiologic surveillance. It has believed to be reliable for surveys related to RSV around the worlds (17). Previous research related to covid-19 has been published using google trends (18-20). However, the use of google trends to assess the drug related terms in Indonesia is limited.
Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the trends of influenza's symptoms drug searching terms in Indonesia. Moreover, the positive confirmed cases during covid-19 in Indonesia were searched to obtain the peak of covid-19 outbreak.

Positive Covid-19 Confirmed Cases in Indonesia
To obtain the positive covid-19 confirmed cases in   This study found the most common symptom of covid-19 was fever, following by cough (30).  However, the anxiety could make people think twice before they go to hospital during the Covid-19 pandemic.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
A study in Indonesia found that during the Covid-19 pandemic, people tended to do self-medication comparing to visit healt center services or hospitals (11).
Other studies found that during the Covid-19 pandemic, fever, flu, and cough were the top three of disease that curing by self-medication in.