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161078

How Diabetes Mellitus-related Health Information is Received by Egyptian Internet Users? A Cross-sectional Study

Article

Last updated: 04 Jan 2025

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-

Tags

Clinical Research (Medical)

Abstract

Background: The Internet has become a fundamental source of health-related information especially for chronic diseases as Diabetes Mellitus. The aim of this study was to explain the health information-seeking behavior using internet health information among Egyptian adults with diabetes. Subjects and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted from June to October 2019. A Web-based questionnaire was sent to Egyptian internet users aged 18 years and older (N=380) of a popular Arabic-language health information website. The online questionnaire form included personal characteristics, preference of using internet health information and explore the impact of obtained health information on users' health behavior. Results: A total of 283 participants completed the Web-based questionnaire with a response rate of 74.5 % (283/380). Personal characteristics of the participants showed that 161 (56.8 %) participants were aged under 35 years, 182 (64.3%) were female, and 110(38.8%) had a good general health status.  Participants prefer seeking OHI for an existing health problem were 138 (48.8%), while 106 (37.4%) participants seek OHI when having a new health problem. Internet health information helped 192 (67.9%) participants to improve their understanding of their health problem, 160 (56.7%) participants reported has decreased their unnecessary visits to their physicians, helped 179 (63.4%) participants to take an active role in their diabetes health management, and 186 (65.9%) participants reported applying healthy changes in their lifestyle. Conclusions: Younger individuals with higher education more likely to seek health information from the internet. Participants mentioned convenience and anonymity as the main reasons to search for diabetes health information on the internet. Internet health information can promote users' healthy behavior changes.
 

DOI

10.21608/scumj.2021.161078

Keywords

Online health, health information-seeking behavior

Authors

First Name

Mayada

Last Name

Ghweeba

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

Community Medicine Department, Faculty of Medicine, Suez Canal University, Ismailia, Egypt

Email

ghweebam@med.suez.edu.eg

City

Ismailia

Orcid

0000-0001-9872-5533

First Name

Sobhi

Last Name

Shishi

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

Community Medicine Department, Faculty of Medicine, Suez Canal University, Ismailia, Egypt

Email

sobhi.elshishi@gmail.com

City

-

Orcid

-

First Name

Mostafa

Last Name

Kofi

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

Community Medicine Department, Faculty of Medicine, Suez Canal University, Ismailia, Egypt

Email

moustafafouad@yahoo.com

City

-

Orcid

-

First Name

Amani

Last Name

Abdel-Halim

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

Community Medicine Department, Faculty of Medicine, Suez Canal University, Ismailia, Egypt

Email

-

City

-

Orcid

-

First Name

Shaimaa

Last Name

Amer

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

Community Medicine Department, Faculty of Medicine, Suez Canal University, Ismailia, Egypt

Email

-

City

-

Orcid

-

First Name

Antje

Last Name

Lindenmeyer

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

Institute of Applied Health Research, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

Email

a.lindenmeyer@bham.ac.uk

City

-

Orcid

-

Volume

24

Article Issue

1

Related Issue

22901

Issue Date

2021-03-01

Receive Date

2021-04-04

Publish Date

2021-03-01

Page Start

51

Page End

60

Print ISSN

1110-6999

Online ISSN

2090-2581

Article File

SCUMJ_Volume 24_Issue 1_Pages 51-60.pdf

PDF . 345.0kB

Link

https://scumj.journals.ekb.eg/article_161078.html

Detail API

https://scumj.journals.ekb.eg/service?article_code=161078

Order

6

Type

Original Article

Type Code

938

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

Suez Canal University Medical Journal

Publication Link

https://scumj.journals.ekb.eg/

MainTitle

How Diabetes Mellitus-related Health Information is Received by Egyptian Internet Users? A Cross-sectional Study

Details

Type

Article

Created At

22 Jan 2023