Communicating Online Diet-Nutrition Information and Influencing Health Behavioral Intention: The Role of Risk Perceptions, Problem Recognition, and Situational Motivation

Abstract

Despite the concerns raised about the impact of online health information on users, research has not specifically explored different types of information behaviors people exhibit during the communicative process. In this article, we address this research gap by combining the Situational Theory of Problem Solving with considerations of multiple dimensions of risk perception, such as affective and deliberative. This study constructs a hypothetical model to explore how online users' risk perceptions and information behaviors (information seeking, forefending, and forwarding) influence their health behavioral intention. A survey collected data from 1,463 participants at two healthcare centers in China. Based on the structural equation modeling, multiple dimensions of risk perception play a distinctive role in communicating online health information and forming health behavioral intention. Furthermore, information forwarding, an essential information behavior, influences deliberative risk perception more than information forefending, and it is a much better predictor of individuals' health intention than information seeking. Implications and suggestions for health communication research are discussed.

AI‐Powered mental health chatbots: Examining users’ motivations, active communicative action and engagement after mass‐shooting disasters

“…Therefore, in the present study, as some prior studies (e.g. Jin et al, 2018;Krishna, 2018) also did, we focus on three active dimensions of communicative actions in dealing with mental illness as a health and social problem that many people face after directly or indirectly experiencing mass-shooting disasters: (a) information seeking as active information acquisition (i.e. active search for or planned scanning of information about mental health problems), (b) information forefending as active information selection (i.e.…”

“…Our participants were asked to report their active information acquisition (seeking), selection (forefending) and transmission (forwarding) in healthcare chatbot communication about mental illness and mass shooting. c) Last, the extant STOPS research has included behavioral intention (Li, Harrison, Qiao, & Li, 2019;McKeever, Pressgrove, McKeever, & Zheng, 2016), health behaviour intention (Jin et al, 2018) and continuation of risk health behaviour (Kim et al, 2018) as behavioural outcomes of communicative action. Our study adds into this limited yet growing body of research by examining healthcare chatbot users' online and offline engagement behaviour towards dealing with mental illness as both a health threat and a potential cause and/or consequence of other problems affecting social wellbeing such as mass shootings.…”

COVID-19 Misinformation on Social Media and Public’s Health Behavior: Understanding the Moderating Role of Situational Motivation and Credibility Evaluations

“…Three items for religious misinformation were self-developed based on the intensive literature review related to religious groups’, faith leaders’, priests’, and maulanas’ opinion pertaining to COVID-19. Situational motivation was measured by using four-item scale, three items were adapted from Kim and Grunig ( 2011 ) and Yan et al ( 2018 ) and one item–“I need more COVID-19 information to improve my health literacy”–was self-developed. Five-item credibility evaluation scale was adapted from Meyer ( 1988 ).…”

Predicting Communicative Behavior of Higher Institutions Employees during COVID-19 Pandemic: A Conceptual Assessment

“…To restrict the spread of the Virus, countries have implemented stringent measures such as social isolation [7,8], hand washing, and environmental cleaning. Numerous prior studies examined the effect of communication actions on health-related behavior [9][10][11]. However, no data on the level of awareness and attitude of Higher Institution Employees (HIE) toward COVID 19 are available.…”

“…Numerous scientists have established that information seeking is a crucial element in predicting health behavior, which results in a variety of favorable health outcomes [9]. Indeed, the extent to which individuals benefit from health information is largely determined by their ability to obtain, process, and convey the data [10]. Thus, it is critical to examine how HIE get information regarding COVID 19 and how they respond to the information.…”