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Digital Health Literacy and Information-Seeking Behavior among University College Students during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Sectional Study from Denmark

The COVID-19 pandemic and the concomitant infodemic have emphasized the importance of digital health literacy (DHL) to global public health research and practice. The aim of this study was to examine information-seeking behavior, the ability to find, understand and deal with health information among...

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Autores principales: Bak, Carsten K., Krammer, Jeanne Ø., Dadaczynski, Kevin, Orkan, Okan, von Seelen, Jesper, Prinds, Christina, Søbjerg, Lene M., Klakk, Heidi
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8955471/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35329363
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19063676
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author Bak, Carsten K.
Krammer, Jeanne Ø.
Dadaczynski, Kevin
Orkan, Okan
von Seelen, Jesper
Prinds, Christina
Søbjerg, Lene M.
Klakk, Heidi
author_facet Bak, Carsten K.
Krammer, Jeanne Ø.
Dadaczynski, Kevin
Orkan, Okan
von Seelen, Jesper
Prinds, Christina
Søbjerg, Lene M.
Klakk, Heidi
author_sort Bak, Carsten K.
collection PubMed
description The COVID-19 pandemic and the concomitant infodemic have emphasized the importance of digital health literacy (DHL) to global public health research and practice. The aim of this study was to examine information-seeking behavior, the ability to find, understand and deal with health information among university college students in Denmark and/in addition we wanted to examine the impact of their close social network on students’ ability to find and understand health information. This research was carried out as part of the COVID-HL university student survey by using a uniform questionnaire consisting of elaborated scales. Data were collected from a cross-sectional survey conducted at University College South during 4 weeks in April and May 2020. To capture DHL, four subscales of the DHL instrument were adapted to the pandemic context. A total of 59.9% of the students have sufficient DHL—most students find it rather easy to find information and are satisfied with the information they find on the internet. However, some (28.1%) students find it difficult to judge the quality and reliability of the information. Students with a sufficient level of DHL are more likely to seek information through search engines and websites of official institutions, while students with a limited level of DHL more often use social media for health information. Students with sufficient DHL more often share health information and less often ask for support in their network
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spelling pubmed-89554712022-03-26 Digital Health Literacy and Information-Seeking Behavior among University College Students during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Sectional Study from Denmark Bak, Carsten K. Krammer, Jeanne Ø. Dadaczynski, Kevin Orkan, Okan von Seelen, Jesper Prinds, Christina Søbjerg, Lene M. Klakk, Heidi Int J Environ Res Public Health Article The COVID-19 pandemic and the concomitant infodemic have emphasized the importance of digital health literacy (DHL) to global public health research and practice. The aim of this study was to examine information-seeking behavior, the ability to find, understand and deal with health information among university college students in Denmark and/in addition we wanted to examine the impact of their close social network on students’ ability to find and understand health information. This research was carried out as part of the COVID-HL university student survey by using a uniform questionnaire consisting of elaborated scales. Data were collected from a cross-sectional survey conducted at University College South during 4 weeks in April and May 2020. To capture DHL, four subscales of the DHL instrument were adapted to the pandemic context. A total of 59.9% of the students have sufficient DHL—most students find it rather easy to find information and are satisfied with the information they find on the internet. However, some (28.1%) students find it difficult to judge the quality and reliability of the information. Students with a sufficient level of DHL are more likely to seek information through search engines and websites of official institutions, while students with a limited level of DHL more often use social media for health information. Students with sufficient DHL more often share health information and less often ask for support in their network MDPI 2022-03-19 /pmc/articles/PMC8955471/ /pubmed/35329363 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19063676 Text en © 2022 by the authors. 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
Bak, Carsten K.
Krammer, Jeanne Ø.
Dadaczynski, Kevin
Orkan, Okan
von Seelen, Jesper
Prinds, Christina
Søbjerg, Lene M.
Klakk, Heidi
Digital Health Literacy and Information-Seeking Behavior among University College Students during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Sectional Study from Denmark
title Digital Health Literacy and Information-Seeking Behavior among University College Students during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Sectional Study from Denmark
title_full Digital Health Literacy and Information-Seeking Behavior among University College Students during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Sectional Study from Denmark
title_fullStr Digital Health Literacy and Information-Seeking Behavior among University College Students during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Sectional Study from Denmark
title_full_unstemmed Digital Health Literacy and Information-Seeking Behavior among University College Students during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Sectional Study from Denmark
title_short Digital Health Literacy and Information-Seeking Behavior among University College Students during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Sectional Study from Denmark
title_sort digital health literacy and information-seeking behavior among university college students during the covid-19 pandemic: a cross-sectional study from denmark
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8955471/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35329363
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19063676
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