Abdulmalek Alqahtani
King Saud University, Saudi Arabia
Title: Factors that affect Saudis’ trust in information obtained through social media regarding MERS-COV
Biography
Biography: Abdulmalek Alqahtani
Abstract
Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) is a major concern to the Saudi population .The objectives of this study were to determine the factors that affect Saudis’ trust in information obtained through social media regarding MERS-CoV, and to determine the different social media's sources of information that Saudis obtain information from, also to determine the relationship between the daily hours of social media use and the degree of trust in different sources of information regarding MERS-CoV.This study is a Cross-sectional study, Questionnaires were distributed in King Khaled University Hospital outpatient's clinics. The Participants were chosen by Simple Random Sampling Technique. Number of responses were 734 individuals with a response rate of 84.2%.The study showed that there are different levels of trust in the sources that we studied. We also noted that gender, age, education, occupation status and specialty were significantly associated with various degrees of trust in health information obtained through social media . The study revealed that governmental sources and non-profit organizations are the most trusted sources, however celebrities and unknown sources are least trusted social media sources of health information regarding MERS-CoV. Moreover daily hours of use affect the trust in these various sources .We should invest more in social media to make it a trustworthy source for health information and must keep in mind the factors that affect the trust when trying to increase the general awareness level in matters like MERS-CoV.