Understanding University Students’ Health Information Seeking Behaviours on Social Media During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Developing Country Perspective

Abstract

AbstractAccording to the World Health Organization (WHO), the COVID-19 pandemic is considered the worst global health crisis in the 21st century that caused unprecedented disruption to many sectors around the world (e.g. education, business, and tourism). Misinformation on social media is one of the major issues during the COVID-19 pandemic, which must be carefully considered. To address this issue, people’s health information-seeking behaviours play an important role to access accurate and reliable information on social media. In this study, we conducted a questionnaire-based study in Myanmar, which is one of the developing countries according to the United Nations to understand university students’ health information-seeking behaviours on social media during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings suggest that social media plays a vital role to spread reliable and accurate information during the pandemic. The role of governments and authorities is also important to effectively use social media platforms (e.g. Facebook) to reach out to the public so that they can spread timely and accurate information during the COVID-19 pandemic. Lastly, users need to assess and verify the credibility of information related to pandemics on social media when they seek health-related information. This study suggests opportunities for further research in health information seeking on social media.KeywordsCOVID-19 pandemicHealth information-seeking BehaviourSocial media