Online health information seeking during COVID-19 pandemic and its association with psychological well-being in Chinese older adults

ABSTRACT

Objectives: The COVID-19 pandemic has led to the surge of health information, including misinformation or infodemic. This study aimed to investigate the online health information seeking and its effects on psychological well-being among older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: This multi-country, cross-sectional study included data gathered from April to May 2020 on older adults aged >60 years from Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau. Descriptive statistics were used to identify health information-seeking patterns. Logistic regression was used to determine associations of the patterns with psychological well-being. Results: 180 older adults were included. Most had accessed the internet to seek COVID-19 information. Information sources included search engines, news portals, social media, video sharing sites, and online encyclopaedias. Health-specific platforms were seldom accessed. Information sought included the spread of COVID-19, transmission routes, and symptoms. Older adults' psychological well-being was positively associated with availability of health information in Chinese (OR=4.69, p<0.05), search for topics that provide hygiene recommendations (OR=6.78, p<0.05), and access to blogs that offer health instructions (OR=3.59, p<0.05). Whereas lower psychological well-being was associated with information about individual measures on how to protect against COVID-19 (OR=0.10, p<0.05) and social restrictions (OR=0.19, p<0.05). Conclusion: Older adults prefer to access easily understandable information and recommendations to improve overall health during the COVID-19 pandemic. To improve psychological well-being, resources to enhance their capacity to protect themselves against COVID-19 and measures to manage social isolation should be offered.