Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Aug 30, 2020
Date Accepted: Feb 18, 2021
Date Submitted to PubMed: Mar 18, 2021
Public Interest in Plastic Procedures during the COVID-19 Pandemic and What Stakeholders Could Do: An Infodemiology Study
ABSTRACT
Background:
The unprecedented pandemic of COVID-19 brings drastic changes to the field of plastic surgery. It is critical for stakeholders to identify the change in public interest to be adequately prepared.
Objective:
The present study aims to reveal change of public interest in plastic procedures caused by COVID-19. Then stakeholders could refocus their practice and survive the present hard time.
Methods:
Publicly accessible tweets about plastic procedures were collected using a web crawler. Groups were determined by referring to tweeting frequency and Google Trends Index. Tweeting frequency, sentiment and word frequency analyses were performed with Python modules.
Results:
73,963 tweets about top plastic procedures were retrieved and divided into three phases. Tweeting frequency increased by 24.0% in phase 2 and decrease 9.1% in phase 3. Tweets about breast augmentation, liposuction and tummy tuck consecutively increased during pandemic. Botox and chemical peel were the first to revive when lockdown was lifted. COVID-19 was associated with a negative impact on public sentiment about plastic procedures. Public word frequency pattern significantly changed first and stay relatively stable then.
Conclusions:
Public maintain their interest in plastic procedures. Stakeholders could refocus on breast augmentation, liposuction and tummy tuck for now. In case of second wave of COVID-19, stakeholders should prepare for a temporary surge of Botox and chemical peel.
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