SAD During Winter? You are Not Alone

This topic has always led to further research and study in the medical field. The topic? Well, it's something that might interest everyone (not just health professionals).

Do you ever feel more depressed, anxious, or bipolar during the winter? Have you ever felt more of a desire to look these illnesses up on Google, to hear from others on their own opinions on the issues? To evaluate your own symptoms? Well, if you searched for these topics on Google in 2012, then you may have took part in a medical study (and social science study)! The study, "Seasonality in Seeking Mental Health Information on Google" conducted by John W. Ayers et al., recently conducted research utilizing keywords for illnesses within the winter months of 2012 that were searched on Google (within the U.S. and Australia). This study has been big news in the media recently, as well as the illness that also may play a role in the concluded results-Seasonal Affective Disorder (also known as SAD).

Keywords as Data: ADHD, anxiety, bipolar, depression, anorexia, bulimea, OCD, suicide and schezophrenia (there were also others, but they were not listed within the article). These words were counted by utilizing Google Trends (a special Google Search Engine which counts the most popular searched-for topics).  
The study does not give a sample size of keywords which were counted for data analysis, but it does give percentages on each sub-group (each illness).
Conclusion of Study: These illnesses seem to relate to seasonal affective disorder. SAD is stated to be caused by the lack of light in the winter, causing a Vitamin D inefficiency as well as releasing certain hormones like serotonin more frequently. This can cause changes in mood and behavior. The statistics from the study would probably have gone undetected using the "traditional" data collection (most notably annual telephone surveys), and this study (and others following suit) will further improve medication treatments, resources and understanding of depression in the winter.

Data Analysis: Continuous wavelet transform (which examines scale and time within a certain function, which is used for signal analysis) which measured the magnitude or timing for each subgroup within the annual winter season. Phase angles (180 degrees to 0 degrees) were used to measure the peaks and troughs present within the data between the U.S. and Australia. They measured the searching differences between summer and winter months for both nations. 14% difference in U.S. in winter vs. summer months while Australia had 11% difference. Most popular searches to least popular: Eating disorders (US 37%, Aus 42%), schizophrenia, ADHD, suicide, depression, bipolar, OCD and then anxiety (US 7%, Aus 15%). Although the article states that media trends were accounted for, it is interesting how some of the most discussed mental illnesses in society (and tv) are also the most searched. There is a lot of emphasis on looking healthy, diet and supplements. We are bombarded every day with commercials as well as news stories on eating habits, what we should look like, etc. Also, ADHD is a very intensely-viewed subject as well. There have been other studied on how there is an increase in ADHD in children, etc, and this may in fact play a role in searches on Google. On the other hand we have anxiety, which many people already know about, and the topic of anxiety is not at all as hyped up as ADHD, suicide, bipolar and eating disorders.

My conclusion of study: There were some issues I had with how the study was conducted. Mainly with how data was collected. First of all, not everyone owns a computer, especially the elderly, younger children, as well as lower socioeconomic status individuals. Also, the search engine data collection only provides statistical information on densely populated geographical locations. It cannot take into account less populated areas. Also, not everyone uses Google. There are many other people who use other search engines such as Ask.com, Bing or Yahoo for their internet queries. As of April 2011, Google had 65.4% of the market share vs. Yahoo having 15.9% and Bing having 14.1% of the market share. In other words, 30% of internet users do not use Google that often. This is a large percentage of the American population! It was also mentioned that "several nonclinical indicators for query seasonality (such as media trends or academic interests) were explored and rejected" (1). I am personally wondering how you would be able to discern academic interests from personal ones, because the wording in the article came off as if they researchers just "assumed" that some illnesses and how they were written were academic. I do have to give credit in the sense that the article does state, "however, many search engine results are of questionable quality" (5).

I do think that the implications from this study specifically, as well as others which will be encouraged, will have the ability to evaluate the overall population more definitively by utilizing the various technological influences that we as a society have a habit of using.

The Article:  http://www.ajpmonline.org/webfiles/images/journals/amepre/AMEPRE_3749%5B3%5D-stamped-040913.pdf  <---Definitely take a look at their wavelet transformations illustrated on pages 3 and 4)

Youtube video where I learned about the Continuous Wavelet Transform:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQ0LODraq3g