Background Total hip arthroplasty (THA) utilization is increasing significantly. Despite this, it is unknown whether patients have increasing interest in THA, and what patients search online regarding THA. Google Trends provides the relative search volume (RSV) regarding any search term. Therefore, we performed this study utilizing Google Trends to determine whether public interest in THA is increased, and to identify which THA search terms have the most engagement.

Methods A longitudinal study on United States public interest in THA was performed with Google Trends from January 2013 – December 2022. 50 Google search terms were identified, for which the mean RSV was obtained and compared. RSV ranges from 0 – 100 and represents interest in a search term during at a specific point during the selected timeframe; 0 indicates negligible interest while 100 indicates maximal interest. Linear regression was used with yearly volume to determine if RSV increased significantly over time. We compared the rates of change for various pairs of search terms using an interaction model.

Results Between 2013–2022, the mean RSV for “hip replacement” increased significantly 2013: 57; 2022: 92; p < 0.001, indicating increasing public interest in THA. Additionally, when comparing 50 search terms about THA, “hip replacement pain” and “hip replacement recovery” had significantly higher mean RSVs than other terms, and the ten highest mean RSV terms also included “hip replacement cost”, “hip replacement therapy”, “hip replacement precautions”, “hip replacement approach”, “how long does hip replacement take”, “hip replacement fracture”, “hip replacement infection”, and “hip replacement rehab” (65 vs 61 vs 20 vs 15 vs 14 vs 12 vs 11 vs 11 vs 10 vs 8; p < 0.001). The mean RSV significantly increased over the last decade for “hip replacement pain” 2013: 44; 2022: 88; p < 0.001 and “hip replacement recovery” 2013: 50; 2022: 73; p < 0.001. The rate of change of these two terms was significantly more positive over time than all other terms.

Conclusion Public interest in THA has significantly increased during the past decade, correlating with the increasing volume of THA being performed. Patients have interest in many topics about THA, with pain and recovery having the largest increase in search volume over time. Other topics such as cost, therapy, surgical length/approach, and complications were also commonly searched. Patient information resources should ensure to include these variety of topics to meet changing patient interests.