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Abstract
This study uses the Planned Risk Information Seeking Model (PRISM) to estimate the public's information seeking and avoidance intentions during the COVID-19 outbreak based on an online sample of 1031 Chinese adults and provides support for the applicability of PRISM framework in the situation of a novel high-level risk. The results indicate that information seeking is primarily directed by informational subjective norms (ISN) and perceived seeking control (PSC), while the main predictors of information avoidance include ISN and attitude toward seeking. Because ISN are the strongest predictor of both information seeking and avoidance, the way the public copes with COVID-19 information may be strongly affected by individuals' social environment. Furthermore, a significant relationship between risk perception and affective risk response is identified. Our results also indicate that people who perceive greater knowledge of COVID-19 are more likely to report greater knowledge insufficiency, which results in less information avoidance.
Highlights
Since the outbreak of COVID-19 at the end of 2019, it has spread globally, and confirmed cases have surged worldwide with worrisome speed
We propose that affective risk response will be positively related to knowledge insufficiency (H2) and COVID-19 information seeking intention (H3), while it will be negatively associated with information avoidance (H15)
We examined Planned Risk Information Seeking Model (PRISM) in the situation of individuals’ COVID-19 risk information seeking behavior and offered support for the applicability of the PRISM model to forecast the intentions of information seeking and avoidance during the pandemic
Summary
Since the outbreak of COVID-19 at the end of 2019, it has spread globally, and confirmed cases have surged worldwide with worrisome speed. As of 4:22 pm, CET, February 18, 2021, there have been 109,594,835 of confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 2,424,060 deaths according to the latest data of the World Health Organization (2021), which has declared that COVID-19 is a pandemic, meaning an escalation in both the severity of it and the difficulty of fighting it. People of all ages lack immunity and are generally susceptible to COVID-19. The main routes of transmission are respiratory droplets and close contact (the World Health Organization, 2020). The pandemic has greatly affected the economic development and social stability of many countries and has caused psychological panic among most people (Siebenhaar et al, 2020). The global growth contraction for 2020 is estimated at −3.5 percent by the International Monetary Fund (2021), which is the agency’s most pessimistic forecast since the Great Depression of the last century
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