JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has been confirmed as a pandemic by the world health organization and is of concern to countries. Great efforts have been exerted to prevent the spreading of the disease through national initiatives together with personal behaviors, which depend on the awareness of the public.

Objective:

The purpose of this study is to assess public health perceptions and misconceptions regarding COVID-19 in China.

Methods:

The study was conducted in April 2020 through an online survey, with participants in eight provinces in eastern, central and western China. The researchers designed a questionnaire with a health knowledge section consisting of 5 questions (4 conventional questions and 1 misleading question) on clinical features and preventive measures of COVID-19. Descriptive statistics, chi-square analysis, binary logistic regression, and Mantel-haenszel hierarchical analysis were used for statistical analysis.

Results:

4788 participants completed the survey and the mean knowledge score was 4.63±0.67, gained mainly through experts (76.1%), TV (60.0%), newspaper (57.9%), opinions (46.6%) and videos (42.9%) from social media. People who obtained information from more than three channels compared to those who obtained information from only one or two showed a significant improvement in their health perception and distinguishable rate of misleading perception. Suggestions from experts were the most positive source(χ2=41.61), while information on social media is the most misleading. The population aged over 60 years (OR=1.52, 95%CI:1.10-2.11), lower-middle-income level(OR =1.36, 95%CI:1.00-1.83), no work without workability (OR=1.83, 95%CI:1.04-3.21), household income below 100000RMB(OR =1.34, 95%CI:1.08-1.67), with more than two suspected symptoms(OR =2.95, 95%CI:1.50-5.80) are more likely to be misled by video on social media, but experts’ effect on error correction was limited in these groups.

Conclusions:

Multiple information channels can improve public health perception and the identification of misleading information during the COVID-19 pandemic. The video in social media caused the huge risk of rumor propagation among the vulnerable groups in lower classes. We suggested the government should strengthen social media regulation and enlarge the expert’s influence on the targeted vulnerable populations to eliminate the rumor spreading risk.