An investigation of changes in pharmaceutical consumption patterns in Turkey between 2013 and 2023

In this master's thesis, the temporal changes in pharmaceutical consumption and the digital search behaviors of the Turkish population between 2013 and 2023 were examined. Official health statistics from the Ministry of Health and Google Trends-based digital search data were integrated to comprehensively analyze consumption patterns for major drug groups, including musculoskeletal, gastrointestinal, respiratory, cardiovascular, and anti-infective medications. The relationships between values such as sales volume, sales value, and daily consumption, and the annual Google Trends scores of symptom- and treatment-focused search terms, were evaluated using both parametric and non-parametric correlation analyses. The findings of the study revealed that digital search interest, particularly for targeted symptoms and treatment terms, exhibited a strong correlations with actual pharmaceutical consumption data. For instance, search interest for "muscle relaxant" showed a perfect correlation with drug sales value (ρ=1.000; p<0.01), while "gastric medication" was highly correlated with sales volume (r=0.977; p<0.001), and "asthma medication" with daily consumption (r=0.973; p<0.001). "Antihypertensive medication" also showed a very high correlation with sales volume (r=0.98; p<0.001), and the correlation between "antibiotic" search interest and year was found to be r=0.945; p<0.001. In contrast, general and academic terms mostly exhibited weak or negative correlations. These results indicate that digital sources such as Google Trends may serve as a strong complement to traditional health statistics in the proactive formation of health policies, drug demand forecasting, and the development of early warning systems. The rapid adaptability of digital search data offers an innovative monitoring perspective for the real-time observation of sudden public health threats and shifts in societal demand.