The Impact of Health Literacy on Electronic Word of Mouth (e-WOM) in Health Information Sharing Among Internet Users in Oman and UAE
摘要
Health literacy inadequacy has garnered full attention from the health authorities of various nations. Regardless of the inadequacy, there are individuals who incompetently share argumentable health information via the internet with the intention of helping others out without considering the potential bad effects coming through. This preliminary descriptive study was conducted in correlational approach to examine the relationship and impacts of health literacy, which includes the domains of health care, disease prevention and health promotion towards the electronic word of mouth (e-WOM) in health information sharing among the internet users in Oman and United Arab Emirates (UAE). Besides, this study has applied quota sampling in approaching the targeted respondents from Oman and UAE where 100 samples of internet users were conveniently selected by the researchers as the study’s respondents. A set of self-administered questionnaires was used as the study’s instrument which was virtually disseminated via google form. Descriptive analysis findings have indicated that Emiratis have higher percentage in adequate health literacy as compared to the Omanis. In the meantime, results from the correlational analysis demonstrated the overall and domains of health literacy were significantly and positively related to electronic word of mouth (e-WOM) in health information sharing. The multiple regression analysis findings have also showed that health care was the only and strongest predictor of e-WOM. Health literacy was found to have a significant, positive and strong association to e-WOM in health information sharing among the internet users in Oman and UAE. Despite of its limitations as a preliminary study, the findings can still significantly recommend the importance of intervention from the public health authorities of both countries to educate and empower the society in enhancing their basic understanding on own health care.