Journal of medical Internet research
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J. Med. Internet Res. · Oct 2020
Collective Response to Media Coverage of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Reddit and Wikipedia: Mixed-Methods Analysis.
The exposure and consumption of information during epidemic outbreaks may alter people's risk perception and trigger behavioral changes, which can ultimately affect the evolution of the disease. It is thus of utmost importance to map the dissemination of information by mainstream media outlets and the public response to this information. However, our understanding of this exposure-response dynamic during the COVID-19 pandemic is still limited. ⋯ Overall, our findings offer an additional key to interpret public perception and response to the current global health emergency and raise questions about the effects of attention saturation on people's collective awareness and risk perception and thus on their tendencies toward behavioral change.
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J. Med. Internet Res. · Oct 2020
Social Media Use, eHealth Literacy, Disease Knowledge, and Preventive Behaviors in the COVID-19 Pandemic: Cross-Sectional Study on Chinese Netizens.
Since its outbreak in January 2020, COVID-19 has quickly spread worldwide and has become a global pandemic. Social media platforms have been recognized as important tools for health-promoting practices in public health, and the use of social media is widespread among the public. However, little is known about the effects of social media use on health promotion during a pandemic such as COVID-19. ⋯ Social media is an effective tool to promote behaviors to prevent COVID-19 among the public. Health literacy is essential for promotion of individual health and influences the extent to which the public engages in preventive behaviors during a pandemic. Our results not only enrich the theoretical paradigm of public health management and health communication but also have practical implications in pandemic control for China and other countries.
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J. Med. Internet Res. · Oct 2020
Associations of Mental Health and Personal Preventive Measure Compliance With Exposure to COVID-19 Information During Work Resumption Following the COVID-19 Outbreak in China: Cross-Sectional Survey Study.
Risk and crisis communication plays an essential role in public health emergency responses. The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered spontaneous and intensive media attention, which has affected people's adoption of personal preventive measures and their mental health. ⋯ This study provides empirical evidence of how the amount, sources, and contents of information to which people were exposed influenced their mental health and compliance with personal preventive measures at the initial phase of work resumption in China. Thoughtful consideration of information quality was found to play an important moderating role. Our findings may inform strategic risk communication by government and public health authorities during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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J. Med. Internet Res. · Oct 2020
Brain Tumor Discussions on Twitter (#BTSM): Social Network Analysis.
The Brain Tumor Social Media (#BTSM) Twitter hashtag was founded in February 2012 as a disease-specific hashtag for patients with brain tumor. ⋯ From its start in 2012, #BTSM has grown exponentially over time. We believe its growth suggests its potential as a global source of brain tumor information on Twitter for patients, advocates, patient organizations as well as health care professionals and researchers.
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J. Med. Internet Res. · Oct 2020
Comparative StudyDiagnostic Accuracy of Web-Based COVID-19 Symptom Checkers: Comparison Study.
A large number of web-based COVID-19 symptom checkers and chatbots have been developed; however, anecdotal evidence suggests that their conclusions are highly variable. To our knowledge, no study has evaluated the accuracy of COVID-19 symptom checkers in a statistically rigorous manner. ⋯ We found that the number of correctly assessed COVID-19 and control cases varies considerably between symptom checkers, with different symptom checkers showing different strengths with respect to sensitivity and specificity. A good balance between sensitivity and specificity was only achieved by two symptom checkers.