Online health information-seeking behavior among the UP Manila community during the COVID-19 pandemic: A preliminary report on data collection

• Main Authors: Ayran, Sheila May Relado, Carangian, Julius Javier, Salcedo, Zaira Joie Austria, Tutor, Micah Marie Bulig
• Format: text
• Published: Animo Repository 2022
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/conf_clis/2022/Schedule/7
• Institution: De La Salle University

Purpose/objectives. Being constantly confronted with COVID-19 pandemic information, protocols and restrictions resulted in fear and anxiety of going out of our households. This has hindered people from seeking professional help whenever we feel unusual symptoms or changes in our bodies. People resorted to seeking online help to gain a sense of relief from understanding these symptoms and changes and to improve their health treatment decision-making. The University of the Philippines Manila is known as the country’s premier institution for the health sciences and the leader in health, human resources, education, training, and research. With only the internet as the easiest way to access information, as a health sciences center, it is important to understand the Online Health Information (OHI)-seeking behavior of its constituents and get a clear description of how they utilize OHI personally and academically both from library subscribed resources and external online resources. This study aims to describe the OHI-seeking behavior of the health sciences community at the University of the Philippines Manila in terms of familiarity with the online resources available, awareness of the students of the library’s subscribed databases, and their knowledge and confidence in using the internet as a source of health information. It also aims to identify the usual OHI sources consulted by students and the factors they consider in selecting these sources. Design, methodology, approach. A quantitative research design is used for this study. Specifically, this study employs a descriptive research design. This study adapted the Survey on Online Health Information-Seeking among Patients Attending a Primary Care Clinic in Hong Kong questionnaire. This instrument was developed by Wong, D. K. K., & Cheung, M. K. and was used in their 2019 study entitled “Online health information seeking and ehealth literacy among patients attending a primary care clinic in Hong Kong: A cross-sectional survey.” Respondents of this study include currently enrolled Students, Faculty Members, Administrative Staff and Research, Extension and Professional Staff (REPS) of the University of the Philippines Manila through the non-probability, convenience sampling method. Convenience sampling is used by the researchers involved in selecting individuals or groups that happen to be available and are willing to participate in the research at the time. Data on demographics, OHI sources, approaches, and behaviors is collected, no identifying information will be collected. Open recruitment and active recruitment is used for this study. Open recruitment involved sending of the Google Form link on an email blast and social media postings for the participants to fill out. The gathering of the email addresses will be coordinated through proper channels. Active recruitment was also done personally by the researchers by inviting those who are eligible to participate. Statistical analysis of survey data will be conducted using Google Sheets and interpreted using graphs. Findings. The preliminary report of data collection of this research shows that online health information-seeking is frequent among the University of the Philippines Manila community during the COVID-19 pandemic. It shows that they are relying mostly on the use of online information to search for the health information they are looking for. It also suggests that most respondents are confident in the resources that they are consulting and their way of searching for the information online. Practical implication. The results of this study will offer insights into how the University of the Philippines Manila community utilizes library subscribed databases and online resources in their OHI-seeking activities. This will allow libraries to develop programs for students’ OHI- seeking behavior skills to ensure that they are accessing the appropriate health information sources. Moreover, this study will be of benefit to the librarians, administrators, and in the field of librarianship. The information gathered from the results is seen to be beneficial in developing marketing strategies for available library resources, it will also strengthen libraries’ justification in selecting and acquiring subscriptions. This study intends to fill the gap in the literature that will be able to develop best practices and might be of help in answering some issues and concerns in the OHI-seeking behavior of health sciences students. Originality of the paper: To describe the OHI-seeking behavior among the UP Manila community during the COVID-19 pandemic, this paper adapted the tool used in the study by Wong, D. K. K., & Cheung, M. K. (2019) entitled "Online health information seeking and ehealth literacy among patients attending a primary care clinic in Hong Kong: A cross-sectional survey."