Diabetes & Metabolic Syndrome: Clinical Research & Reviews
Original ArticleThe positive impact of social media on health behavior towards the COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh: A web-based cross-sectional study
Introduction
The coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) [1]. The SARS-CoV-2 was first identified in Wuhan, China on November 17, 2019 and within few months, COVID-19 had transmitted in all over the world with increased morbidity and mortality which made a panic situation [1,2]. Due to global spread, the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared COVID-19 as pandemic on March 11, 2020 [3,4]. As of March 10, 2021, about 120 million cases and 2.7 million fatalities due to COVID-19 have been reported globally [3,4]. On March 08, 2020, the first case of COVID-19 was reported from Bangladesh and the cases have increased to 861,150 with 13,702 fatalities till June 23, 2021 [[3], [4], [5]]. Bangladesh is one of the top 35 countries by the case and fatality number of COVID-19 [4]. Without delay the government imposed on a strict lockdown for impediment virus transmission during March to June 2020. Besides, government takes massive action against COVID-19 spread through closure of the educational institutions, government offices and public places and imposing restriction on local and international transportations [5].
Safe epidemic communication plays a crucial role to concern people about the latest tidings of COVID-19 [6]. Direct spread of important guidance on COVID-19 via government offices became impossible during the pandemic. Social media and television along with various websites played significant role in circulation of health messages and update on the pandemic [6,7]. Besides, e-medicine and telemedicine service in different countries were the primary way to provide medical services to COVID-19 patients [7,8]. Nowadays the whole world is connected together through the informatics shared by social media, television and print media. As measures of rapid responses amid the pandemic various governmental and private health agencies have created databases and websites containing various information on COVID-19 pandemic [[7], [8], [9]]. One group of databases and websites including Worldometer, Bing, WHO, CDC, John Hopkins University, GitHub are providing information on epidemiological aspects namely, cases, fatalities, age and gender distributions, test number, and overall situation of the pandemic in a country [5]. Besides, databases including Nextstrain, GISAID, and NCBI are providing the scientific community with the information on genomic data. Meanwhile, social media and television are circulating the core messages on both epidemiology and genomic information through different pages [[7], [8], [9]]. Among the most influencing social media platforms Facebook, YouTube, twitter, Instagram, messenger, WhatsApp, and WeChat are disseminating news and information to the mass people rapidly [[8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16], [17]]. Besides, different journals and publishers are also sharing their information through the social media platform. Information shared via social media including general health precautionary measures, mask using, social distance maintaining, hand washing and lock down are having positive impact amid the pandemic [[15], [16], [17]]. Social networking sites are used by governments, as well as public health authorities to inform about tested location of COVID -19, more affected areas and take responsibilities strictly so that legal information are posted related to COVID-19 with the thoughts of legitimacy has deflected in the content of social media platforms [[15], [16], [17]]. Social media can transfer useful information about infectious diseases by identifying and tracking behavioral patterns of the users. Social media health campaigns related to pandemics can be effective to slow down the spread of the disease by conveying positive attitudes [7,[18], [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], [24], [25], [26], [27], [28], [29], [30]].
Information shared via social media and television needs rapid evaluation. Rumors and misinformation about the pandemic are also spreading fast through the social media and television [10,[15], [16], [17]]. It is becoming difficult for the common people to differentiate fake information from authentic. Besides, continuous sharing of negative and confusing news regarding the pandemic for long time having psychiatric effects on the users. However, strict evaluation of the information can reduce the spread of rumors regarding the pandemic [10,22]. The severity of the pandemic is still beyond control globally. Both the cases and fatalities are increasing every day [3,4]. In Bangladesh, the pandemic has been spreading throughout the country from March 2020 [5]. Both the incidence and the fatality associated with COVID-19 have increased in Bangladesh [[3], [4], [5]]. Several factors including preexisting health conditions like hypertension and diabetes among the infected people have increased the severity and fatality [11,12]. Besides, environmental factors and population factors are also contributing in the pandemic [2,5,13,14].
As response against the pandemic the Government of Bangladesh has taken effective measures to reduce the spread. The information by the government along with the situation reports were rapidly made available to the mass people by social, and print media. Till January 3, 2020, about 66.44 million internet users were reported in Bangladesh, where the number of social media users were 36 million [31]. During the lockdown period both government and the health agencies in Bangladesh has disseminated important information and directions by websites, social media and television. In controlling the COVID-19 pandemic through information, social media and television became a major part [[18], [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], [24], [25], [26], [27], [28], [29], [30]]. However studies on the positive effects of the informatics shared by social media, television and print media amid the pandemic are insufficient [19]. Recently a study on the impact of social media in raising panic during the COVID-19 pandemic has been done in Iraq [10]. A significant research gap is present on the impact of informatics through websites and social media in building awareness during the COVDI-19 pandemic.
The main aim of the study is to elucidate the significance of the information system to reduce the spread of the pandemic and ultimately health burden in Bangladesh. Another aim of this study is to determine the role of informatics available in websites and social media in building health awareness among people during COVID-19 and the frequency of the most used social media during the pandemic, age and gender distribution of the user, and ultimate effects of the information on the users amid the pandemic.
Section snippets
Study area, design, and period
A web-based cross sectional study was conducted on 1808 people during December 10, 2020 to February 10, 2021, amid the second wave in Bangladesh. Data were collected using structured questionnaire developed in the mother tongue of local people (Bengali language) from all over the country. Sample size was determined based on the previously published works and our study sample size was large enough to power the statistical analysis. Categorical variables (yes vs no) were used to conduct the
Socio-demographic analyses of the study population
During the study period 1808 participants responded in the study questionnaire. Female (52%, 937 of 1808) was the prevalent sex group. The mean age of the study population was 24 ± 3.9 years. In the categorical analysis, study participants were divided into seven age groups including below 10 years to above 60 years (Table 1). About 52.7% (459 of 871) of the population were from age group 20–29 years followed by age group 10–19 years (29%, 208 of 1808). Students (63%, 1131 of 1808) were the
Discussion
Information and news on the social media, television and print media have profound influences on our daily activities [7]. During the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic various information have been made available to the people so that they can take proper health measures to avoid infection and transmission [7,9,18,19]. In this study we determined the impact and correlation of informatics on the COVID-19 pandemic. This study was conducted on 1808 participants. The ratio of male to female was 1:1.08 and
Conclusions
To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study revealing the attitude of the people to use various information sources including social media, television and print media and the impact of these information on the users about the COVID-19 pandemic. The demand of quick communication of authentic and original information about the pandemic is constantly present and the findings of this study will provide significant insights to the government, policy makers and health agencies to
Funding
This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
Author contributions
Nadim Sharif: Conceptualization (lead); Data curation (lead); Formal analysis (lead); Investigation (equal); Methodology (lead); Project administration (lead); Software (lead); Validation (lead); Writing-original draft (lead); Writing-review & editing (lead). Rubayet Rayhan Opu: Data curation (equal); Investigation (equal). Khalid J Alzahrani: Data curation (equal); Investigation (equal). Shamsun Nahar Ahmed: Data curation (equal); Methodology (equal). Suchana Islam: Data curation (equal).
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgement
This work was partially supported by Taif University Researchers Supporting Program (project number: TURSP-2020/128), Taif University, Saudi Arabia.
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