en Dentistry Dentistry Original Research Original Research <span style="font-size:13pt"><span style="text-justify:kashida"><span style="text-kashida:0%"><span style="text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif"><span style="font-style:italic"><b><span style="font-size:9.0pt"><span style="font-style:normal">Background: </span></span></b><span style="font-size:9.0pt"><span style="font-style:normal">Lockdowns due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic forced many dental offices to be closed. This study aims to investigate the association between COVID-19 imposed lockdowns and online searches for toothache using Google Trends (GT).</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br> <span style="font-size:13pt"><span style="text-justify:kashida"><span style="text-kashida:0%"><span style="text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif"><span style="font-style:italic"><span style="font-size:9.0pt"><span style="font-style:normal">&nbsp;&nbsp; <b>Methods:</b> We investigated GT online searches for the term &ldquo;toothache&rdquo; within the past 5 years. The time frame for data gathering was considered as the initiation and end dates of national/regional lockdowns in each country. We used 1-way analysis of variance to identify statistical differences in relative search volumes (RSVs) between 2020 and 2016-2019 for each country.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br> <span style="font-size:13pt"><span style="text-justify:kashida"><span style="text-kashida:0%"><span style="text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif"><span style="font-style:italic"><span style="font-size:9.0pt"><span style="font-style:normal">&nbsp;&nbsp; <b>Results:</b> Overall, 16 countries were included in our analyses. Among all countries, Indonesia (n = 100), Jamaica (n = 56), Philippines (n = 56), Iran (n = 52), and Turkey (47) had the highest RSVs for toothache in the specified period. Compared with the previous 4 years, higher RSVs were seen in the world (as a whole) (2020 RSVs, 94.4; vs 2019 RSVs, 77.8 [</span></span><span style="font-size:9.0pt">P</span><span style="font-size:9.0pt"><span style="font-style:normal"> < 0.001]) and 13 countries (81.3% of the included countries).</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br> <span style="font-size:13pt"><span style="text-justify:kashida"><span style="text-kashida:0%"><span style="text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif"><span style="font-style:italic"><span style="font-size:9.0pt"><span style="font-style:normal">&nbsp;&nbsp; <b>Conclusion:</b> Generally, searching for the term &ldquo;toothache&rdquo; showed an increase during the COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020 compared with the past 4 years. This can imply the importance of dental care as urgent medical care during public health emergencies such as COVID-19.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span> Toothache, COVID-19, Google Trends, Health Care Seeking Behaviour, Lockdown 282 293 http://mjiri.iums.ac.ir/browse.php?a_code=A-10-6434-3&slc_lang=en&sid=1 Ahmad Sofi-Mahmudi sofimahmudi@research.ac.ir 200319475328460076669 200319475328460076669 No Cochrane Iran Associate Centre, National Institute for Medical Research Development, Tehran, Iran Erfan Shamsoddin shamsoddin@research.ac.ir 200319475328460076670 200319475328460076670 Yes Cochrane Iran Associate Centre, National Institute for Medical Research Development, Tehran, Iran Peyman Ghasemi P.ghasemi94@gmail.com 200319475328460076671 200319475328460076671 No Department of Health Economics, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran Mona Nasser Mona.nasser@plymouth.ac.uk 200319475328460076672 200319475328460076672 No Peninsula Dental School, Plymouth University Peninsula Schools of Medicine and Dentistry, Plymouth, UK Bita Mesgarpour Mesgarpour@research.ac.ir 200319475328460076673 200319475328460076673 No Cochrane Iran Associate Centre, National Institute for Medical Research Development, Tehran, Iran