Effective use of online COVID-19 information and eHealth information literacy among US university students

Abstract

Objective: This study aimed to understand students’ ability to search the Internet for COVID-19 information and apply it to evaluate the veracity of specific statements. Participants: Undergraduate students (N = 239) at a US university completed a Web-based questionnaire in September–October 2020. Methods: The questionnaire included self-reported measures of online health information literacy, COVID-19 knowledge, and anxiety along with exercises on searching and evaluating COVID information online. Results: Students reported moderate levels of information literacy (76%, 3.8 out of 5), but did not perform as well while searching the Internet for COVID-19 information (average accuracy: 65%, 10.5 out of 16 points). Students with higher Internet exercise scores reported higher GPA, higher household income, and liberal political views, and were more likely to follow public health measures [ie, social distancing, mask wearing, and not self-medicating with (hydroxy)chloroquine]. Conclusions: University students may overestimate their information literacy while struggling with searching the Internet for accurate COVID-19 information.

Keywords:

• COVID-19
• eHealth
• information literacy
• Internet

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the students who participated in this study.

Conflict of interest disclosure

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of the US and received approval from the Institutional Review Board of Stockton University (IRB Reference #: 2020.136).

Notes

1 https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/social-distancing.html

2 https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/health-equity/race-ethnicity.html

3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nkwE3didNo

4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0viPWOjMvs&t=969s

5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czCxtAx5uqk

Additional information

Funding

No funding was used to support this research and/or the preparation of the manuscript.