Principal Findings
In investigating PE online interest in mainland China, 36 PE search keywords were identified as valid and could be categorized into the topics complaint, inquiry, prognosis, and treatment. Information on search trend and the geographic, demographic, and user demand information could be identified based on data from the BSI platform.
Baidu is the leading search platform in mainland China. Every day, over billions of user-initiated information queries are made on this platform. With the substantial amount of user-generated data, the medical professionals were enabled with a new insight into users’ information-seeking behaviors and health care problems. Studies have confirmed that the big data from the online platform is capable of assisting with forecasting pandemic outbreaks, identifying population interests, monitoring health education campaigns, and tracking the popularity trend of patients’ preferences [20-22]. Our investigation revealed that the PE search trend on the Baidu Index platform reflects the overall public concern of this health issue.
In our research, 36 PE keywords were categorized into four topic categories. Searches for the complaint topic accounted for over 35% (BSI: 66,387,459/187,558,154) of the search popularity for PE inquiries. This high proportion is probably because the PE search keywords are also words describing symptoms. When it was intuitive and simple to express without content restriction, starting a query with these terms could allow users to decide additional queries depending on the retrieved information. The treatment topic included 21 search keywords, describing PE treatment ranging from medication, surgery, or other available options. From these search keywords, the conveyed definition and concept were restricted and specific. Therefore, this result reveals that Chinese users are likely to assume they have a health problem and are more concerned about the availability and options of solving this problem. Despite the lack of basic understanding of this disease, such as its definition, morbidity, etiology, pathology, or diagnostic criteria, the treatment options were users’ primary concern in health issues like PE. Though six search keywords concerned PE definition and criteria, the total search popularity of the topic inquiry accounted for only 11.90% (BSI: 22,320,901/187,558,154). Hence, a high rate of online self-diagnosis and treatment was observed. Internet self-diagnosis has caused concern about diagnosis delay and misleading treatments [23]. With unproven or biased information that is frequently presented on the internet, the population is given unrealistic expectations. A distrust of professionals with “objective” reasoning could also exacerbate their anxiety about their own problems [24]. Our findings partly represent these issues. Therefore, improving internet health care and optimizing medicine services relies on elevating service quality and popularizing basic medical concepts [25].
When evaluating the popularity trend, a similar pattern was observed for the four PE topics. For each topic, the sustained growing trends were only observed in the beginning years. This trend patten reveals that, although the PE incident rate in the population may remain constant, the users’ medical advice-seeking habits may have changed. The medical information from the Baidu platform has always been in public dispute. As the most commonly used search engine in mainland China, Baidu has long been criticized for presenting the top-ranked sites based on higher bids [23]. The biased and inductive information with higher bids are always listed at the top, making high-quality or evidence-based medical information from universities or medical centers more time consuming to obtain [23]. When the Wei Zexi incident broke out in 2016, public critiques of Baidu had reached a peak because the top listed and false advertised treatments claiming to cure synovial sarcoma from this search engine were deemed the leading cause for a 21-year-old student’s death [26]. In 2017, Hu et al [23] found that most health information online from the first 100 links for keywords were generally inadequate. Furthermore, from a recent investigation by Chen et al [27], the content available on Baidu were less credible and inferior to those from Google. Consequently, instead of serving as a search engine that presents information on health education and credible content, Baidu more resembles an advertising platform. Therefore, local public health authorities should participate more and make regulations on the internet service industry, encouraging them to provide more qualified and well-produced information, unbiased information, and evidence-based recommendations on their platform. Hence, the trends in our research indicate that, although the PE prevalence may remain stable, the public awareness may change as people change their information-seeking behavior in response to poor quality content, impacting search popularity.
From the geographic data, we discovered that the PE search popularity was dominated by searches from the East China, North China, and South China regions, where the top four Chinese megacities (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen) are located. Although national PE epidemiology data are lacking, this geographic distribution was in line with the leading regional economic level and the demographic distribution [28]. Coinciding with the finding from Xu et al [8] and Wang et al [7], the search popularity’s interregional gap may also be a result of the differences in socioeconomic status, population structure, healthy concepts, and health care policies [9]. Medical professionals could gain insight into the public concern toward PE and customize their clinical session accordingly.
PE was reported as the most common sexual complaint in males in all age groups in previous epidemiological studies [29]. Though it has long been believed that the PE incidence is correlated with age differences, the existing age PE prevalence data were controversial [30-32]. In our investigation, over 70% of PE online search queries came from males aged 20 to 39 years. This result appears to contradict the Global Online Sexuality Survey, from which the peak PE prevalence was observed in men in their forties [32]. Nevertheless, from an internet-based survey, the highest self-reporting PE incident was for those in their thirties and twenties [30]. The discrepancy between these previous research results may be caused by the screening method, diagnostic standard, and inclusion criteria of risk factors such as age, coitus regularity, circumcision, and masturbation history [31,32]. We believe the openness in Son et al’s [30] investigation resembles the online inquiry on a searching platform. Their discoveries were similar to ours, the results presenting the natural concerns of users and the related popularity distribution [30]. In addition, we noticed the PE inquiry from the female population had reached 24.82% (BSI: 46,556,413) in total and 40.97% (BSI: 9,144,492) in the topic inquiry. Previously, the investigated partners’ satisfaction rates were 45% from the individual with PE’s perspective [33]. According to Zhang et al [34], although only 21.39% of females tended to report PE as hampering sex satisfaction, females are more adversely experienced with relationship issues, such as arousal difficulty, weak sexual desire, and organism inability [34]. Though the cultural differences may underlie searching preference, as the tip of an iceberg, our results may show the concerns and demands of PE issues troubling females. Hence, PE impact on females should be stressed.
In the user demand section, the top 10 most related terms were used for each keyword search. From this section, practitioners were able to gain insight into the patients’ most concerning problems and to confirm individuals’ main intentions from these weekly updated data. Generally, these related terms reflected the wide-ranging scope of concerns when searching PE-related content, such as PE comorbidity, PE training practices, PE etiology, and reproductive influences.
We noticed that the most popular term was “The fastest and easiest way to cure PE?” The high prevalence of this term echoes the topic popularity finding in our research, indicating that the users’ most concerning issue is related to problem solving. Hence, users’ self-diagnosis and self-treatment of issues should be stressed.
The relationship between PE and chronic prostatitis (CP) has been long observed [35]. Suggested as an organic PE cause, the existence of CP in PE is yet to be fully understood. The sexual dysfunction prevalence in males with CP has reached 49% in previous investigations, and the severity of the symptom scoring between these two clinic complaints is well correlated [36,37]. Supporting these investigations, we discovered that “prostate” and “prostatitis” were the most inquired terms from users. This popularity revealed that prostatic problems are the primary concern for patients with PE; also, these people may tend to self-diagnose themselves with prostatitis instead of ejaculatory dysfunction. Whether this concern results from the doctor’s instruction or is based on the patient with PE’s complaint, it is necessary to screen for PE and CP complications.
Additionally, in investigating the users’ demands in treatment, the most queried terms were related to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. The followed treatment regimens were phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitor, topical anesthetic agents, behavior therapy, and tramadol, accounting for over 80% of the search popularity, and these treatment options were either recommended by the sexual dysfunction treatment guidelines or evaluated for safety and efficacy [38,39]. This information could alert the patients to treatment avoidance and contraindication. In addition, better compliance could facilitate patients’ comprehension of the doctor’s instructions.
Nevertheless, terms with false information and their popularity are not noteworthy. These terms typically suggest applying homemade regiments from everyday domestic items on to the penis, ranging from vegetable mixtures with ginger, leeks, or onions to toothpaste or the Fengyou essence (a type of essential balm). Though patients could not be harmed much from the vegetable mix remedies aside from allergies or mucosal lesions, damages from the toothpaste and the Fengyou essence can be more consequential [6], for the main ingredients of Fengyou essence and toothpaste are more abrasive and irritative pharmaceutical materials; the improper application of these regimens with the wrong dose could cause severe skin abrasion or even damage the genital organ [6,40].
Some limitations must be addressed in this study. First, the Baidu Index is only available for search data on the Baidu platform. Though Baidu is the most widely used platform and monopolizes the searching requests in mainland China, the users’ shift to social media for searching is rising. Therefore, lacking a uniform recording system, data from these growing social media sites are not able to be incorporated or be assessed without bias . In addition, in considering the user privacy security, only the user age, gender, and living region information was available for the demographic research. For an in-depth demographic investigation, data such as socioeconomic status, ethnicity, or educational background are required. Additionally, instead of representing the actual search frequency, the BSI is just a weighted index derivative and cannot manifest real-world disease prevalence. Nevertheless, before a nationally conducted PE prevalence and demographic investigation is available, infodemiology research is practical to investigate the PE problems and users’ information-seeking behaviors from the population perspective.
To our best knowledge, this is the first infodemiology study that investigates PE public concerns in mainland China. We chose to examine the PE popularity because its clinical manifestations are intuitive and easy to describe. More importantly, patients with sexual dysfunction are willing to search online due to privacy concerns. Hence, the real-time updated searching data helps to improve practice standards and policy making for medical professionals and health officials.