Using Two Theories in Exploration of the Health Information Diffusion on Social Media During a Global Health Crisis

Abstract

As the possibility of sharing inaccurate information on social media increases markedly during the health crisis, there is a need to develop an understanding of social media users’ motivations for online sharing of information related to major public health challenges such as COVID-19. This study utilised an online survey based on Theory of Planned Behaviour and Diffusion of Innovation Theory to examine how the behavioural intention to share COVID-19-related content on social media is impacted and to develop a model of health information sharing. Results indicate that opinion leadership, beliefs held towards the source of the information, and peers’ influence serve as determinants of the intention to share COVID-19-related information on social media, while the opinion-seeking attitude does not, which could be explained by opinion seekers’ inherent tendency to seek more sources to verify new information obtained. The study contributes to the Information Science field by addressing the previously under-researched area and proposing a new model that explains the impact of the factors on behavioural intention to share health-related information during the health crisis in the online network environment.