Background In February 2020, the Chinese government imposed a complete lockdown of Wuhan and other cities in Hubei Province to contain a spike of COVID-19 cases. Although such measures are effective in preventing the spread of the virus, medical professionals strongly voiced a caveat concerning the pandemic emotional burnout at the individual level. Although the lockdown limited individuals’ interpersonal communication with people in their social networks, it is common that individuals turn to social media to seek and share health information, exchange social support, and express pandemic-generated feelings. Objective Based on a holistic and multilevel perspective, this study examines how pandemic-related emotional exhaustion enacts intrapersonal, interpersonal, and hyperpersonal emotional regulation strategies, and then evaluates the effectiveness of these strategies, with a particular interest in understanding the role of hyperpersonal-level regulation or social media–based regulation. Methods Using an online panel, this study sampled 538 Chinese internet users from Hubei Province, the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak in China. Survey data collection lasted for 12 days from February 7-18, 2020, two weeks after Hubei Province was placed under quarantine. The sample had an average age of 35 (SD 10.65, range 18-78) years, and a majority were married (n=369, 68.6%). Results Using structural equation modeling, this study found that intrapersonal-level (B=0.22; β=.24; P<.001) and interpersonal-level (B=0.35; β=.49; P<.001) emotional regulation strategies were positively associated with individuals’ outcome reappraisal. In contrast with intrapersonal and interpersonal regulations, hyperpersonal (social media–based) regulation strategies, such as disclosing and retweeting negative emotions, were negatively related to the outcome reappraisal (B=–1.00; β=–.80; P<.001). Conclusions Consistent with previous literature, intrapersonal-level regulation (eg, cognitive reappraisal, mindfulness, and self-kindness) and interpersonal-level supportive interaction may generate a buffering effect on emotional exhaustion and promote individuals’ reappraisal toward the stressful situation. However, hyperpersonal-level regulation may exacerbate the experienced negative emotions and impede reappraisal of the pandemic situation. It is speculated that retweeting content that contains pandemic-related stress and anxiety may cause a digital emotion contagion. Individuals who share other people’s negative emotional expressions on social media are likely to be affected by the negative affect contagion. More importantly, the possible benefits of intrapersonal and interpersonal emotion regulations may be counteracted by social media or hyperpersonal regulation. This suggests the necessity to conduct social media–based health communication interventions to mitigate the social media–wide negative affect contagion if lockdown policies related to highly infectious diseases are initiated.

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Background Existing health education and communication research routinely measures online channel use as a whole by, for example, evaluating how frequently people use the internet to search for health information. This approach fails to capture the complexity and diversity of online channel use in health information seeking. The measurement of generic online channel use may cause too much error, and it lends no support to media planning in public health promotion campaigns or scholarly research involving online channel use. Objective This study intends to present a thorough picture of patterns of online health information channel use and classify the use of various types of online health information channels, including WeChat, microblogs, web portals, search engines, mobile apps, and online forums. Under the framework of the risk information seeking and processing model, this study also analyzes the differences in individuals’ motivations for channel selection to offer further evidence to validate the classification scheme. Methods This study sampled 542 Chinese internet users in Beijing. The average age of the respondents was 33 years, female respondents accounted for 52.0% (282/542) of the sample, and the average monthly income ranged from US $900 to $1200. The study surveyed the use of 13 commonly used online health information channels and various sociopsychological factors associated with online health information seeking. Results This study derived 3 categories of online health information channels: searching, browsing, and scanning channels. It was found that the use of online searching channels was affect driven (B=0.11; β=0.10; P=.02) and characterized by a stronger need for health knowledge (B=0.09; β=0.01; P<.001). The use of browsing channels was directly influenced by informational subjective norms (B=0.33; β=0.15; P=.004) and perceived current knowledge (B=0.007; β=0.09; P=.003). The use of scanning channels was mainly influenced by informational subjective norms (B=0.29; β=0.15; P=.007). Conclusions The results of this study suggest that health communication practitioners and scholars may consider measuring the use of internet, new media, or online media more precisely instead of simply asking the public about the frequency of online channel use or internet use in the acquisition of health information. Scholars and practitioners may consider measuring the use of online health information channels by using the 3-category scheme described in this study. Future research is encouraged to further explore how people process health information when using different online channels.

Background Since the rise of the internet, online health information seeking has become a worldwide phenomenon. However, health and health communication are inherently culture bound. A data-driven cross-country comparison enables us to better understand how cultural factors moderate the association between individual-level determinants and online health information seeking. Objective The objective of the study was to examine similarities and differences in determinants of internet cancer information seeking between the US and Chinese general public (excluding cancer patients and survivors) under the framework of a behavioral model of health services use. Methods This study used Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS) 2017 (US data) and HINTS-China 2017 data to answer the research question. It focused on people with no cancer history and with internet access. For the HINTS 2017, the sample size was 2153; for the HINTS-China 2017, the sample size was 2358. To compare China and the United States, the researchers selected the same set of study variables for each dataset. Under the framework of the behavioral model of health services use, these predictors were predisposing factors, enabling factors, and need factors. Results In terms of the predisposing factors, a higher age, college degree or above, being currently unemployed, and having a family history of cancer were associated with internet cancer information seeking for the Chinese respondents; none of these factors were related to information seeking for the US respondents, although a lower age was associated with information seeking. Regarding the enabling conditions, lower trust in family members and friends as reliable information sources was the only factor associated with information seeking for the Chinese respondents, while no enabling factor was related to information seeking for the US respondents. Regarding the need factors, perceived health status was not related to information seeking for the Chinese respondents, while perception of poorer health condition was related to information seeking for the US respondents. Higher cancer fear was related to information seeking for both groups, but the magnitude of association was smaller for the Chinese respondents than for the US respondents. Conclusions Overall, under the framework of the behavioral model of health services use, the results based on multivariate logistic regression reveal clear patterns of cross-country/cultural differences in the factors associated with internet cancer information seeking behaviors: predisposing characteristics and enabling conditions are more important in China, while perceived needs are more significant in the US. Such differences might reflect possible US-China differences in job environment (eg, job pressure) and culture (individualism vs collectivism and family structure).

As an important class of heterocyclic scaffolds, 2-imidazolines and their derivatives are an important class of molecules. Based on their good reactivity and biological activity, they are widely used in the field of drugs and pharmaceuticals, natural product chemistry, synthetic organic chemistry, coordination chemistry, anticorrosion and homogeneous catalysis. Significant effort has been devoted to the synthesis and applications of such compounds. This review provides a summary of recently developed methods for the preparation of 2-imidazolines, and their latest developments of applications.