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Undergraduate Students’ Online Health Information-Seeking Behavior during the COVID-19 Pandemic

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...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor principal: Hsu, Wan-Chen
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8701409/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34948859
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182413250
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author Hsu, Wan-Chen
author_facet Hsu, Wan-Chen
author_sort Hsu, Wan-Chen
collection PubMed
description 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.
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spelling pubmed-87014092021-12-24 Undergraduate Students’ Online Health Information-Seeking Behavior during the COVID-19 Pandemic Hsu, Wan-Chen Int J Environ Res Public Health Article 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. MDPI 2021-12-16 /pmc/articles/PMC8701409/ /pubmed/34948859 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182413250 Text en © 2021 by the author. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Hsu, Wan-Chen
Undergraduate Students’ Online Health Information-Seeking Behavior during the COVID-19 Pandemic
title Undergraduate Students’ Online Health Information-Seeking Behavior during the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_full Undergraduate Students’ Online Health Information-Seeking Behavior during the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_fullStr Undergraduate Students’ Online Health Information-Seeking Behavior during the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_full_unstemmed Undergraduate Students’ Online Health Information-Seeking Behavior during the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_short Undergraduate Students’ Online Health Information-Seeking Behavior during the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_sort undergraduate students’ online health information-seeking behavior during the covid-19 pandemic
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8701409/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34948859
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182413250
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