Introduction
Since December 2019, a series of atypical pneumonia cases appeared, which were identified as Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), an infectious disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), now became a global concern[1]. In January 2020, the COVID-19 epidemic began in Beijing[2]. The promulgation and implementation of various epidemic prevention measures have had a huge impact on the daily life of the public, and may also affect the occurrence and prevalence of various diseases.
Adenoid hypertrophy is a common disease in children, as the nasopharynx is both a respiratory channel and a drainage channel for nasal and sinus secretions, as well as a drainage area for the eustachian tube, middle ear, and mastoid process. When adenoidal hypertrophy is present, it can lead to OSA, persistent secretory otitis media, and sinusitis in children, which can seriously affect their quality of life[3].
In recent years, with the popularity of smartphones and computers, the Internet plays an increasingly important role in information dissemination and science popularization. According to the 48th Statistical Report on the Development of Internet in China in 2021[4], by June 2021, the number of Internet users in China has reached 1.011 billion, the Internet penetration rate is 71.6 percent, and the number of search engine users in China has reached 795 million, accounting for 78.7 percent of the total Internet users. Baidu is the world’s largest Chinese search engine and is the preferred search tool for most Internet users in China. Studies have found that people may lie for various reasons in daily life, so there may be bias in conventional statistical analysis methods, while in the face of the Internet, people usually express their real needs[5].
Following the COVID-19 outbreak, more children were asked to wear masks, go to crowded places less frequently and pay more attention to hand hygiene, the effect of which on adenoid hypertrophy is unknown. The main objective of this study was to infer changes in the population of adenoid hypertrophy attendances before and after the outbreak of COVID-19 and to explore potential influencing factors by using the Baidu index and the number of adenoid hypertrophy outpatient visits at the Blinded for review.