Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Formative Research
Date Submitted: Oct 26, 2020
Date Accepted: Apr 16, 2021
Date Submitted to PubMed: May 6, 2021
COVID-19 lockdown: changes in perceptions and use of mobile technology and health communication in South Africa
ABSTRACT
Background:
In late March 2020, South Africa implemented a 5-stage COVID-19 Risk Adjusted Strategy, which included a lockdown that required all residents to remain home to prevent the spread of SARS-CoV-2. Due to this lockdown, individuals have been forced to find and use alternatives for accomplishing tasks including shopping, socializing, working and information, and many have turned to the internet and their mobile devices.
Objective:
This study aimed to describe how South Africans consume and internalize information surrounding the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in order to determine whether the SARS-CoV-2 lockdown and social isolation has influenced technology behaviour, particularly for health communication and information.
Methods:
From 24 June to 24 August 2020, South Africans were invited to complete a survey through the online data collection resource, UPINION. The survey examined demographic information, technology use during the lockdown and SARS-CoV-2 knowledge.
Results:
There were 405 participants, 296(73.06%) females, 320(79.01%) participants had tertiary school education, 242(59.75%) were single and 173(42.72%) participants had full-time employment. The lockdown forced 363(89.63%) participants to use more technology, especially with work (140;24.05%) and social media/communication (133;22.85%). Security/privacy issues (46;38.98%) and unfamiliarity with technology (32;27.12%) were identified as the most common concerns by the 127(31.36%) participants that were unsure about using technology before the lockdown, and almost all (392; 96.79%) participants stated that they would continue using technology after the lockdown. Multimedia (215;53.09%), mobile phone content (99;24.44%) and health organizations/professionals (91;22.47%), were the main source of SARS-CoV-2 information, and 282 (69.63%) felt that they had enough information. Two-thirds (275; 67.90%) of participants stated that they had used their mobile phones for health information before the lockdown, with web searches (109;26.91%), social media (58;14.32%) and government/institutional websites (52; 12.84%) as their main sources. Overall, the mean SARS-CoV-2 knowledge score was 8.8/10, and 335 (82.72%) had adequate knowledge (scored 8/10 or higher). Logistic regression identified relationships between demographics and four technology use variables, and four COVID-19 knowledge variables.
Conclusions:
This study has shown that the SARS-CoV-2 lockdown has forced people to increase technology use, and people plan to continue using technology after the lockdown is lifted. Increased technology use was seen across a variety of fields, however barriers including privacy, unfamiliarity and data costs were identified. This population showed high SARS-CoV-2 knowledge, however the use of web-searches and social media, instead of government/institutional websites provides the potential for health misinformation to be spread.
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