Health-protective behaviour, social media usage and conspiracy belief during the COVID-19 public health emergency

@article{Allington2020HealthprotectiveBS,
  title={Health-protective behaviour, social media usage and conspiracy belief during the COVID-19 public health emergency},
  author={Daniel Allington and Bobby Duffy and Simon Wessely and Nayana Dhavan and James Rubin},
  journal={Psychological Medicine},
  year={2020},
  pages={1 - 7}
}
Abstract Background Social media platforms have long been recognised as major disseminators of health misinformation. Many previous studies have found a negative association between health-protective behaviours and belief in the specific form of misinformation popularly known as ‘conspiracy theory’. Concerns have arisen regarding the spread of COVID-19 conspiracy theories on social media. Methods Three questionnaire surveys of social media use, conspiracy beliefs and health-protective… 
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Health-protective behaviour, social media usage and conspiracy belief during the COVID-19 public health emergency – CORRIGENDUM

Conspiracy Theories in Times of the Covid-19 Pandemic: Populism, Social Media and Misinformation

Social media platforms have for a long time been recognized as great disseminators of misinformation on health. Previous studies found a positive association between the use of social media as the…

Are COVID‐19 conspiracies a threat to public health? Psychological characteristics and health protective behaviours of believers

Unexpectedly, COVID‐19 conspiracy believers adhered to basic health guidelines and advanced health protective measures as strictly as non‐believers, and were less willing to undertake health protective behaviours that were outside of their personal control.

Dynamic relationships between different types of conspiracy theories about COVID-19 and protective behaviour: A four-wave panel study in Poland.

The Relationship Between Social Media Use and Beliefs in Conspiracy Theories and Misinformation

It is found that individuals who get their news from social media and use social media frequently express more beliefs in some types of conspiracy theories and misinformation, and that social media use becomes more strongly associated with conspiracy beliefs as conspiracy thinking intensifies.

Unwillingness to engage in behaviors that protect against COVID-19: the role of conspiracy beliefs, trust, and endorsement of complementary and alternative medicine

How people respond to the guidelines is more strongly and consistently related to the degree of trust they feel in the information sources, than to their tendency to hold conspiracy beliefs or endorse CAM.

Consuming Information Related to COVID-19 on Social Media Among Older Adults and Its Association With Anxiety, Social Trust in Information, and COVID-Safe Behaviors: Cross-sectional Telephone Survey

Older adults who rely on social media for COVID-19-related information exhibited more anxiety symptoms, while showing mixed effects on attitudes and behaviors, suggesting that social media may have caused more confusion than consolidating a consistent effort against the pandemic.

The Impact of Social Media Exposure and Interpersonal Discussion on Intention of COVID-19 Vaccination among Nurses

The prevalence of intention of COVID-19 vaccination was relatively low among Chinese nurses and health promotion is needed, and frequent social media exposure and interpersonal discussion potentially enhanced vaccination intentions via increased perceived vaccine efficacy.

Is Social Media a New Type of Social Support? Social Media Use in Spain during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Mixed Methods Study

This study examines Spanish adults’ social media use during the COVID-19 pandemic using mixed-methods to assess and understand frequency, context, and changes in social media use during two critical…

Edinburgh Research Explorer Associations between COVID-19 misinformation exposure and belief with COVID-19 knowledge and preventive behaviors

COVID-19 misinformation exposure wasassociated with misinformation belief, while misinformation belief was associated with fewer preventive behaviors and up-to-date public health strategies are required to counter the proliferation of misinformation.
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