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.