Italian public interest in online and in-person psychological support during the COVID-19 pandemic: Insights from Google Trends

Objective: This study aimed to investigate the interest in online and in-person psychological support services in Italy during the COVID-19 pandemic, stimulated by the implementation of the government-issued 'bonus psicologo' for psychotherapy sessions.Methods and Measures: Public interest was measured using data from Google Trends, a resource that offers open access to actual search requests, within the time frame of 2 July 2017 to 13 November 2022. These data were stratified for Italian regions to explore regional differences. We conducted interrupted time series analyses to assess changes in interest before, during and after the lockdown.Results: Results indicated a significant increase in interest in online psychological support during the lockdown, which was sustained over time and was positively correlated with the implementation of the 'bonus psicologo' (p < .001). Interest in in-person support decreased during the lockdown but began to rise post-lockdown (p = .028), with no notable impact from the economic incentive. High interest in online support continued in certain regions even 1 year post-lockdown, warranting further analysis.Conclusion: The study underscores a heightened post-pandemic interest in psychological support, both online and in person, in comparison with pre-pandemic levels. Google Trends emerges as a valuable tool for monitoring public interest during specific events, though the findings must be interpreted with care, given the study's time frame and reliance on relative search volume as a measure. Future research is needed to validate these findings and to compare them against epidemiological data.