Digital Health Literacy About COVID-19 as a Factor Mediating the Association Between the Importance of Online Information Search and Subjective Well-Being Among University Students in Vietnam
Open accessAbstract
Introduction: Digital health literacy (DHL) has recently been proposed as a means of enabling healthy decisions for protective behavior, preventive measures, and adherence with COVID-19 policies and recommendations especially in the era of the “infodemic”. This study aimed to (1) identify COVID-19 related DHL and its association with online information seeking; (2) to elucidate COVID-19 related DHL as a mediator predictor between the importance of online information search and its association with subjective well-being among Vietnamese university students. Methods: A cross-sectional web-based survey was used to elicit the responses of Vietnamese students over 2 consecutive weeks (from April 25 to May 9, 2020, n = 1,003, 70.1% female students, mean age 21.4 ± 3.1). The online survey questionnaire collected data on the sociodemographic characteristics of participants, DHL about COVID-19, information seeking behavior, and subjective well-being. Mediation analysis was conducted using the importance of searching COVID-19 related information as independent variables, subjective well-being as a dependent variable, and DHL as a mediator variable. Results: Among 1,003 students, the mean (SD) of DHL related to COVID-19 was 2.87 ± 0.32. In the survey, 87.2% of the students reported sufficient well-being, while almost 13% reported low or very low well-being. The findings also indicated that search engines were the most popular platform for information seeking by Vietnamese students (95.3%) and 92.8% of participants had searched for information related to the current spread of COVID-19. Not searching for hygiene regulation as part of infection control and an average level of information satisfaction were associated with limited DHL (p < 0.05). The importance of online information searching related to COVID-19 increased the subjective well-being of students significantly and limited DHL (p < 0.05). DHL was found to mediate the relationship between the importance of online information searching and the subjective well-being of students. Conclusion: The finding provides insight into DHL about COVID-19 among university students, and their ability to find, understand, appraise, and use online health related information during lockdown throughout the first COVID-19 pandemic wave. DHL should be highlighted as a mediating factor that enhances the positive effect of the importance of information seeking on psychological well-being. However, further studies are needed to better define the mediating role of DHL across other factors.
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The DHL mean score among Vietnamese university students was 2.87.
“Our finding was comparable with a study among Vietnamese university students, in that DHL mean score was 2.87 [41].”
Search engines and social media were commonly used by university students in Egypt and Vietnam.
“Search engines and social media were commonly used by university students in Egypt and Vietnam [41, 43].”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, information satisfaction was reported in approximately half of participants in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Vietnam.
“During the COVID-19 pandemic, information satisfaction was reported approximately in half of the participants in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Vietnam [35, 41].”
This topic was the uncommon with lowest frequency of search that could be found university students in Vietnam.
“This topic was the uncommon with lowest frequency of search that could be found university students in Vietnam [41].”
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Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
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“Consequently, this provides them richer knowledge of online health information and in turn, positively affects well-being through improving the health knowledge and self-care skills (48, 49).”
BackgroundMethodBeyond small, medium, or large: points of consideration when interpreting effect sizes
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Htay, M. N. N., Parial, L. L., Tolabing, M. C., Dadaczynski, K., Okan, O., Leung, A. Y. M., & Su, T. T. (2022) · PLOS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0266276 · Cited by 78 · see citing works
Self-citation
- Authors
- Nguyen, L. H. T., Vo, M. T. H., Tran, L. T. M., Dadaczynski, K., Okan, O., Murray, L., & Van Vo, T.
- Affiliations
- Tokyo Medical and Dental University (JP)
- Leuphana University of Lüneburg (DE)
- Bielefeld University (DE)
- Massey University (NZ)
- Venue
- Frontiers in Digital Health
- Publisher
- Frontiers Media SA
- Published
- 2021-09-27
- Volume
- 3
- Pages
- 739476-739476
- ISSN
- 2673-253X (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC8522001
- OpenAlex
- W3202901477
- Cited by
- 54
- References
- 8
- Citations by year
- 2026: 9 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 17 · 2022: 11
- FWCI
- 10.15
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Frontiers in Digital Health (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Multilingual Matters (Channel View Publications) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Massey Research Online (Massey University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- mediaTUM – the media and publications repository of the Technical University Munich (Technical University Munich) (submittedVersion)
- Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld (Universität Bielefeld) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Greater South Information System
- Funders
- Đại học Huế
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Health Literacy and Information Accessibility
- Social Sciences › Communication › Communication and COVID-19 Impact
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › COVID-19 and Mental Health
- Keywords
- digital health literacy, COVID-19 pandemic, online information seeking, subjective well-being, university students, mediation, infodemic, health information seeking, hygienic standards, COVID-19 lockdown, Vietnam
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