Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Formative Research
Date Submitted: Jun 22, 2023
Date Accepted: Dec 5, 2023
Educational Video Intervention to Improve Health Misinformation Identification on WhatsApp Among Saudi Arabian Population: A Pre-Post Intervention Study
ABSTRACT
Background:
Misinformation about health can adversely affect the quality of life and even increase mortality risk. Due to its capacity to disseminate information rapidly, social media can serve as a platform for the propagation of misinformation. Considering the increased use of social media platforms—primarily WhatsApp—in Saudi Arabia for sharing health information, it is essential to develop tools that help consumers assess the credibility of messages and detect misinformation.
Objective:
The study objectives are: (1) To develop an educational tool to educate consumers about identifying health-related misinformation in WhatsApp messages. (2) To evaluate the tool's effectiveness in educating consumers about identifying health-related misinformation on WhatsApp.
Methods:
The study utilized a single-arm, pre-post intervention design to evaluate the effectiveness of educational video in improving participants' ability to detect health-related misinformation in WhatsApp messages. The study's first phase was developing and validating an educational video intervention. In the second phase, participants were invited to complete an online survey that contained pre-evaluation questions, the intervention, and post-evaluation questions.
Results:
The online survey received 485 responses. The completion rate was 99.6%. Statistically significant associations existed between knowledge level and age, gender, employment, and region of residence (P<.05). The video intervention did elicit a statistically significant change in the participants’ abilities to identify misinformation in WhatsApp messages (Z= -6.887, P<.001). Viewing the video was associated with increased knowledge about the following concepts: checking the “forwarded” label (P<.001), looking for spelling and grammatical errors (P<.001), analyzing the facts (P=.028), checking links (P=.002, P=.001), and assessing the photos and videos (P<.001). There was a statistically significant difference in knowledge level between pre-and post-intervention, P<.001.
Conclusions:
This study developed and evaluated the effectiveness of educational video to educate WhatsApp users about detecting health misinformation on this application. The results indicate that educational videos can be valuable tools for improving participants’ abilities to identify misinformation.
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