This study investigates health information seeking behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic based on a survey of 1,018 residents in Kuwait. An online questionnaire was used to collect the data using convenience sampling method. More than half the respondents reported following news updates on COVID-19 through websites produced by the Kuwaiti Ministry of Health (MOH), local TV channels, and social media networks. They were aware of most of the precautions being prescribed to curb the spread of the virus. Official resources that helped improve the participants’ health information seeking behaviour included receiving text messages from government agencies and watching daily press coverage of news conferences held by the MOH. Health information seeking behaviour for COVID-19 varied among the respondents according to socio-demographic characteristics. Male respondents had sought more health-related information than the females. Respondents aged 18 to 29 years and student groups were more likely than others to follow news updates on COVID-19; were more aware of the relevant precautionary practices; and were more likely to improve their health literacy. The findings of this study provide a clear account of public health information-seeking behaviour in Kuwait during the pandemic.
Information and technological skills instruction has been a lingering challenge for librarians and information professionals. Even though undergraduate incoming students to colleges and universities are a technology-savvy generation, evaluation of their Information Literacy (IL) and Technology Literacy (TL) skills might reveal a di®erent situation. This research evaluates the familiarity and skills of the incoming class of undergraduate students of the College of Social Sciences at Kuwait University with Internet and other Social Media Networks (SMN). It seeks to investigate the relation to the educational background of the family and tries to ascertain the uses and means of accessing Internet and its various tools and practical implications on librarianship and the undergraduate curriculum.
BackgroundThis study provides an overview of consumer health information (CHI) scholarly communication trends.ObjectivesTo explore CHI publications trends, journal citations, prolific authors, countries of origin, and distribution of CHI publications.MethodsA bibliometric analysis was used; 8953 records from the Web of Science (WoS) and peer‐reviewed journal articles from databases, including LISA, MEDLINE, ERIC, PREMEDLINE and EMBASE were analysed.ResultsPublications on CHI rapidly increased from 1980 to 2019, especially during the 1990s and 2000s. Most journals that have published CHI research are based in North America and Europe.ConclusionThe increase in the CHI literature corresponds with that in Internet usage in the 2000s, and explains the availability of CHI content online. This trend is associated with the widespread adoption of personal computers (PCs) and other Internet‐enabled gadgets.
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