Behavior patterns and influencing factors: Health information acquisition behavior of Chinese senior adults on WeChat

Due to the gradual adoption of WeChat by older adults in China and their interest in health information, Chinese older people started to acquire health information through WeChat. We explored the specific patterns and influencing factors of the elderly's health information acquisition behavior...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Wei Wang, Hongyan Zhang
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier 2023-06-01
Series:Heliyon
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405844023036381
Description
Summary:Due to the gradual adoption of WeChat by older adults in China and their interest in health information, Chinese older people started to acquire health information through WeChat. We explored the specific patterns and influencing factors of the elderly's health information acquisition behavior senior adults. The cross-sectional study collected self-reported data with survey (N = 336) in the southeast of China, Zhejiang province. The findings of this study extend the previous research by suggesting that elderly adults' health information acquisition behavior has three patterns (actively seeking, passively browsing, and long-term collecting). These findings contribute to a better understanding of digital literacy, three dimensions of health literacy and their relationship with three specific patterns of health acquisition behavior. This study also provides practical insights related to narrow the technological gap of the older adults, improve their e-Health literacy of the elderly, and purify the health information environment in the network.
ISSN:2405-8440