Abstract
As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept across the world, the amount of health-related information available has skyrocketed. Individuals can easily access health information through the internet, which may influence their thoughts or behavior, causing potential technological risks that may affect their lives. This study examined the online health information-seeking behavior of undergraduate students. Taking health issues as a guiding framework, content analysis was adopted to assess participants’ online health information-seeking behavior using a computer screen recording software, and coding analysis was conducted. The study was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic with a formal sample of 101 participants. In terms of online health information-seeking behavior, 59% of the study participants used nouns as keywords, only 27% used Boolean logic retrieval techniques, 81% paid attention to the date of the data, and 85% did not consider the author’s professionalism. The results indicate that health information-seeking behavior and outcome judgments may be a missing piece of the puzzle in higher education. Consequently, the development of online health information-seeking skills through programs for undergraduate students is suggested to ensure that online readers have access to appropriate health information.
Highlights
The COVID-19 pandemic, caused by the novel Sars-CoV-2 coronavirus, has caused the death of millions of people and disrupted daily life worldwide
The results showed that the average number of web pages visited by the study participants to determine the adequacy of the information available on a given health topic was 2.99; their overall browsing time was 5.54 min; and the average time they spent on each web page was 2.39 min
This study investigated the online health information-seeking behavior of undergraduate students
Summary
The COVID-19 pandemic, caused by the novel Sars-CoV-2 coronavirus, has caused the death of millions of people and disrupted daily life worldwide. During this pandemic, individuals were restricted from going outside, and physical activities were reduced as a result of its impact. In Taiwan, the internet is the source of health-related information for 100% of undergraduate students who avail it on a frequent basis [2]. When these students encounter health-related problems, they often resort to the internet to obtain information as a temporary solution [3]
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