Social Media Use, eHealth Literacy, Disease Knowledge, and Preventive Behaviors in the COVID-19 Pandemic: Cross-Sectional Study on Chinese Netizens (Preprint)

Abstract

BACKGROUND Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has quickly spread around the world and led to a novel pandemic since its outbreak from December 2019. Social media (e.g. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram etc.) had been recognized as the important strategies for health-promoting practice in public health. While social media use is widespread in the general population, but little is known about the effect of social media use on health promotion during pandemic outbreak. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to explore whether and how social media use and health literacy predicted public preventive behaviors during COVID-19 outbreak in Chinese contexts. METHODS A national online cross-sectional survey was conducted by proportionate probability sampling method among Chinese netizens in February 2020. Two hierarchical multiple regression models were executed to explore the underlying mechanism of the relationship among all variables. RESULTS Among the 802 participants, 51.9% (N = 416) were male, average age was 32.65 years old. High education (above bachelor, N = 624, 77.7%), high-income (above ￥5,000, N = 525, 65.3%), “Married “(N = 496, 61.8%) and “Good health” (N = 486, 60.6%) were the significant characteristics of the participants. The average time of social use (M = 2.34, SD = 1.12) was about 2-3 hours per day, public social media and aggravated social media were the most used media type. Respondents had high level of disease knowledge (M = 8.15, SD = 1.43), and eHealth literacy (M = 3.79, SD = .59). Frequency of social media use (β = .04, t = 5.97, p＜.001), disease knowledge (β = 5.97, t = 3.42, p＜.001), and eHealth literacy (β = .19, t = 7.69, p＜.001) significantly and positively predicted preventive behaviors, respectively. eHealth literacy (β = .018, t = 2.051, p ＜ .05) did positively and significantly moderate the relationship between frequency of SM use and preventive behaviors, disease knowledge (β = -.01, t = -1.07, p＞ .05) negatively moderated above relationship, but not significantly. Professional SM (β = .041, t = 3.005, p ＜ .01), public SM (β = .077, t = 4.103, p ＜ .001) and aggregated SM (β =.092, t =6.433, p ＜.001) positively predicted preventive behaviors, while “official SM” (β = .013, t = 1.012, p ＞ .05) was excluded. CONCLUSIONS This article was an original research to explore the relationship among one’s SM use, health literacy and preventive behaviors during COVID-19 outbreak in China. We found that social media use really influenced individual’s preventive behaviors and aggregated SM deserved attention in future. Health literacy was essential to health promotion in pandemic outbreak. These results not only enriched the theoretical paradigm of public health management and health communication, but also had practical implications in pandemic control both for China and other countries.

Preferences of Medical Technology Students on COVID-19 Personal Preventive Behaviors and University Safety Protocols: A Conjoint Analysis

“…It is the foundation of health management and the key to change one's health behaviors. [6] General knowledge of the disease and its symptoms are associated with preventive behavior. [7] Therefore, we hypothesize: H1: Access to information is vital for students in determining preventive behaviors.…”