BACKGROUND Mental disorders impose varying degrees of burden on patients and their surroundings. However, people are reluctant to take the initiative to seek mental health services because of the uneven distribution of resources and stigmatization. Thus, mobile apps are considered an effective way to eliminate these obstacles and improve mental health awareness. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to evaluate the quality, function, privacy measures, and evidence-based and professional background of multipurpose mental health apps in Chinese commercial app stores. METHODS A systematic search was conducted on iOS and Android platforms in China to identify multipurpose mental health apps. Two independent reviewers evaluated the identified mobile apps using Mobile App Rating Scale (MARS). Each app was downloaded, and the general characteristics, privacy and security measures, development background, and functional characteristics of each app were evaluated. RESULTS A total of 40 apps were analyzed, of which 35 apps (87.5%) were developed by companies and 33 apps (82.5%) provided links to access the privacy policy; 52.5% did not mention the involvement of relevant professionals or the guidance of scientific basis in the app development process. The main built-in functions of these apps include psychological education (38/40, 95%), self-assessment (34/40, 85%), and counseling (33/40, 83%). The overall quality average MARS score of the 40 apps was 3.53 (standard deviation 0.39), and the total score was between 2.96 and 4.30. The total score of MARS was significantly positively correlated with the scores of each subscale (r = 0.62–0.88; P <.001). However, the user score of the app market was not significantly correlated with the total score of MARS (r = 0.23; P =.19). CONCLUSIONS The quality of multipurpose mental health apps in China’s main app market is generally good and provides various functional combinations. However, health professionals are less involved in the development of these apps, and the privacy protection policy of the apps also needs to be described in more detail. This study provides a reference for the development of multipurpose mental health apps.

Background The COVID-19 vaccine is an effective tool in the fight against the COVID-19 outbreak. As the main channel of information dissemination in the context of the epidemic, social media influences public trust and acceptance of the vaccine. The rational application of health behavior theory is a guarantee of effective public health information dissemination. However, little is known about the application of health behavior theory in web-based COVID-19 vaccine messages, especially from Chinese social media posts. Objective This study aimed to understand the main topics and communication characteristics of hot papers related to COVID-19 vaccine on the WeChat platform and assess the health behavior theory application with the aid of health belief model (HBM). Methods A systematic search was conducted on the Chinese social media platform WeChat to identify COVID-19 vaccine–related papers. A coding scheme was established based on the HBM, and the sample was managed and coded using NVivo 12 (QSR International) to assess the application of health behavior theory. The main topics of the papers were extracted through the Latent Dirichlet Allocation algorithm. Finally, temporal analysis was used to explore trends in the evolution of themes and health belief structures in the papers. Results A total of 757 papers were analyzed. Almost all (671/757, 89%) of the papers did not have an original logo. By topic modeling, 5 topics were identified, which were vaccine development and effectiveness (267/757, 35%), disease infection and protection (197/757, 26%), vaccine safety and adverse reactions (52/757, 7%), vaccine access (136/757, 18%), and vaccination science popularization (105/757, 14%). All papers identified at least one structure in the extended HBM, but only 29 papers included all of the structures. Descriptions of solutions to obstacles (585/757, 77%) and benefit (468/757, 62%) were the most emphasized components in all samples. Relatively few elements of susceptibility (208/757, 27%) and the least were descriptions of severity (135/757, 18%). Heat map visualization revealed the change in health belief structure before and after vaccine entry into the market. Conclusions To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to assess the structural expression of health beliefs in information related to the COVID-19 vaccine on the WeChat public platform based on an HBM. The study also identified topics and communication characteristics before and after the market entry of vaccines. Our findings can inform customized education and communication strategies to promote vaccination not only in this pandemic but also in future pandemics.

BACKGROUND COVID-19 has spread around the world, increasing the public’s need for health information in the process. Meanwhile, in the context of lockdowns and other measures to prevent virus spread, the Internet has surged as an online resource for health information. Under these conditions, social question-and-answer communities (SQACs) are playing an increasingly important role in improving public health literacy. There is great theoretical and practical significance in exploring the influencing factors of SQAC users’ willingness to adopt health information. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study is to establish a UTAUT extended model which could analyze influence factors of SQAC users’ willingness to adopt health information during COVID-19 epidemic. Particularly, we tried to test the moderating effect of different demographic characteristics on the variables’ influences. METHODS The study was conducted with the administration of an online questionnaire survey and the analysis of the responses from a final total of 598 valid questionnaires after invalid data were cleaned. Using structural equation modeling, the influencing factors of SQAC users’ willingness to adopt health information were analyzed. The moderating effects of variables were verified by hierarchical regression. RESULTS Performance expectation (βPE = .282, P < .001), social influence (βSI = .238, P = .02) and facilitating conditions (βFC = .279, P = .002) positively affected users’ willingness to adopt health information, whereas effort expectancy (P = .79) and perceived risk (P = .41) had no significant effects. Gender had a significant moderating effect in the structural equation model. CONCLUSIONS SQAC users’ willingness to adopt health information was evidently affected by multiple factors such as performance expectation, social influence and facilitating conditions. The structural equation model proposed in this study has a good fitting situation and explanatory power of users’ willingness to adopt health information. Suggestions are provided for the SQAC operators and health management agencies based on research results.

BACKGROUND The COVID-19 vaccine is an effective tool in the fight against the COVID 19 outbreak and is the best way to restore social functioning. As the main channel of information dissemination in the context of the epidemic, social media influences public trust and acceptance of the vaccine. The rational application of health behavior theory is a guarantee of effective public health information dissemination. However, little is known about the application of health behavior theory in online COVID-19 vaccine messages, especially from Chinese social media posts. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to understand the main topics and communication characteristics of hot articles related to COVID-19 vaccine on the WeChat platform and to assess the health behavior theory application with the aid of health belief model. METHODS A systematic search was conducted on the Chinese social media platform WeChat to identify COVID-19 vaccine-related articles. A coding scheme was established based on the health belief model, and the sample was managed and coded using NVivo12 (QSR International) to assess the application of health behavior theory. And the main topics of the articles were extracted through the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) algorithm. Finally, temporal analysis was used to explore trends in the evolution of themes and health belief structures in the articles. RESULTS A total of 757 articles were analyzed. Almost all (671/757, 89%) of the articles were not have an original logo. By topic modeling, five topics were identified which were vaccine development and effectiveness (267/757, 35%), disease infection and protection (197/757, 26%), vaccine safety and adverse reactions (52/757, 7%), vaccine access (136/757, 18%), and vaccination science popularization (105/757, 14%). All articles identified at least one structure in the extended health belief model, but only 29 articles included all of the structures. Descriptions of solutions to obstacles (585/757, 77%) and benefit (468/757, 62%) were the most emphasized components in all samples. Relatively few elements of susceptibility (208/757, 27%) and the least were descriptions of severity (135/757, 18%). The heat map visualization shows the change in health belief structure before and after vaccine entry into the market. CONCLUSIONS To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to assess the structural expression of health beliefs in information related to the COVID-19 vaccine on the WeChat public platform based on a health belief model. The study also identified topics and communication characteristics before and after the market entry of vaccines. Our findings can inform customized education and communication strategies to promote vaccination not only in this pandemic but also in future pandemics.

BACKGROUND Health maintenance-oriented WeChat official accounts, an important channel for obtaining health information, have attracted considerable attention from the social science community. However, studies on middle-aged and elderly users'sustainable usage intention of health maintenance-oriented WeChat official accounts are lacking. Increasing the sustainable usage intention of such accounts can strengthen public health education. OBJECTIVE Develop a theoretical model and explore influence factors of middle-aged and elderly users’ sustainable usage intention of health maintenance-oriented WeChat official accounts. METHODS A hybrid theoretical model was established on the basis of unified theory of acceptance and use of technology 2, health belief model, protection motivation theory, and health literacy. IBM SPSS version 24.0 was used to description statistic. IBM SPSS AMOS version 21.0 was used to construct and verify the research model. Three hundred ninety-six valid responses were collected by means of online and offline surveys. RESULTS Performance expectancy (ß=0.383, p<0.001), hedonic motivation (ß=0.502, p<0.001), social influence (ß=0.134, p=0.049), and threat appraisal (ß=0.136, p<0.001) positively influence the sustainable usage intention. Perceived health threat (ß=-0.065, p=0.053) don't has an significant effect on middle-aged and elderly users’ sustainable usage intention of official health maintenance-oriented WeChat accounts. Both threat appraisal (ß=0.579, p<0.001) and health literacy (ß=0.579, p<0.001) positively affect performance expectancy. Threat appraisal indirectly affects sustainable usage intention through performance expectancy mediation. CONCLUSIONS This study focused on middle-aged and elderly users and explored determinants of their sustainable usage intention of official health maintenance-oriented WeChat accounts. Performance expectancy, threat appraisal, social influence, and hedonic motivation are positive determinants. In addition, performance expectancy plays a mediation role between threat appraisal and continued use intention.