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Guided by the Comprehensive Model of Information Seeking (CMIS), this article identifies significant predictors that impact individuals seeking COVID-19 information. People with different political ideologies read contradictory information about the COVID-19 pandemic. However, how political ideology may affect COVID-19 information seeking remains unclear. This study explores the major information channels for individuals with different political ideologies to seek COVID-19 information. It further examines how political ideologies influence CMIS's effectiveness in predicting online health information-seeking.

This study collected 394 completed survey responses from adults living in the United States after the 2020 lockdown. ANOVA analyses revealed the differences in salience, beliefs, information carrier characteristics, utilities and information-seeking actions between Liberals and Conservatives. Regression analyses discovered variables that predict Liberals' and Conservatives' online health information seeking.

Results suggest that the internet is the top channel for COVID-19 information seeking. Compared to Conservatives, Liberals report more COVID-19 information-seeking actions. Liberals also express stronger salience, perceive higher trustworthiness of online COVID-19 information, are more likely to think of seeking online COVID-19 information as useful and helpful and report more substantial efficacy to mitigate the risk. Most CMIS variables predict Liberals' information seeking; however, only salience significantly predicts Conservatives' information seeking.

This article indicates that CMIS should include political ideology to refine its prediction of information seeking. These findings offer practical implications for designing health messages, enhancing information distribution and reducing the public's uncertainty.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-08-2022-0436.

The Internet is used as a tool to seek health information by individuals. Mental health concerns are the high prevalence of the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and preventive steps are required to curb the illness. Therefore, to gain more insight into health concerns, it is now a common practice to seek health information on the Internet. This study propose an integrated theoretical model to explore the relationship between COVID-19 protocols and perceived online trust with online health information seeking intention (OHISI) and a moderating effect of perceived severity and perceived urgency.

Data are collected from 325 athletes in the category of individual and team sports through an online survey in a Likert-scale questionnaire. The analysis is performed with a quantitative methodology.

The study reveals the bright side of online health information (OHI), which brings athletes together and has played out with virtual happy hours, meetings and events. The bright side of OHI reflects social, cultural, technological and economic benefits. An OHI chatbot offers bright personalised side information to the individual seeker, which is more convenient and efficient than human capabilities.

The pivotal contribution is the integrated theoretical framework that is derived from multidisciplinary literature to capture the complexity of OHI. Also, it conceptualises the constructs in the context of OHI and COVID-19.

Drawing upon social cognitive theory, this study aims to investigate the potential predictors and consequences of social media health-misinformation seeking behavior during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Using a sample of 230 international students studying at Wuhan University and Beijing Language and Cultural University, China, this study employs structural equation modeling to analyze the collected data.

The results indicate that personal factors such as lack of health information literacy, environmental factors, information overload and social media peer influence have a significant effect on behavior, namely social media health-misinformation seeking behavior, which further influences outcomes, namely social media users' anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, both lack of health information literacy and social media peer influence have significant and direct effects on social media users' anxiety. However, the direct effect of information overload on social media users' anxiety is insignificant.

First, this study contributes to the literature on the individuals' social media health-misinformation seeking behavior, its precursors and its consequences, specifically on their mental healthcare during a pandemic situation. Second, this research is one of the pioneer studies that extend social cognitive theory to the context of social media health-misinformation seeking behavior and users' anxiety relationship.

To facilitate the use of YouTube as an important global video portal for self-directed learning (SDL), it is important to understand YouTube users' distinctive learning experiences across cultures. This study examines factors influencing YouTube SDL based on the personal responsibility orientation (PRO) model. In addition, the two markets, US and Taiwan, were chosen to explore if national cultural differences affect YouTube users' SDL frequency and goals along with PRO variables.

A self-administered online survey of 372 college aged-YouTube users in the US and Taiwan was conducted to obtain the self-reported SDL behavior on YouTube and other demographic and video usage variable information.

Frequent video sharing and information seeking motives likely facilitate general YouTube SDL, while initiating online video search leads to specific goal-oriented SDL such as problem-solving and skill-improvement. Although American students use YouTube more frequently for SDL than Taiwanese students, Taiwanese students use YouTube more for specific skill improvement.

YouTube's social affordance enables YouTube users' informal and SDL across different national cultures and thus the role such social media play in encouraging lifelong learning needs further attention.

This study contributes to understanding how YouTube fosters the informal learning process through functions enabling YouTube users' self-directed information seeking, sharing and engaging with online videos with a cross-national comparison. This study is also expected to offer insights to promote the use of YouTube for SDL as a first cross-national study applying the PRO model in the context of YouTube SDL.

Seeking online bilingual scientific information is a key aspect of bilingual scientific Web literacy – abilities to engage critically with science on the Web using two languages. This study aims to determine whether factors such as age, education major, gender and type of school attended at secondary level (monolingual, bilingual, trilingual) influence undergraduates’ ability to search online Spanish-English bilingual scientific information.

The participants in this study were 60 students (43 females and 17 males, 18–25 years old) enrolled in a university bilingual science course at a high-ranked Colombian university. They were asked to complete two tasks in which they had to seek online scientific information in Spanish and in English and post their responses on the Web application, Padlet^® (padlet.com).

Results indicate that students’ gender and age influence their academic performance in both tasks and level of originality in using information obtained via the Web, respectively. Moreover, the “scientific journal” was the top source of online information from which participants sought most information to complete both tasks.

People are becoming increasingly accustomed to seeking and sharing online scientific information to support points of view and make decisions. However, it is not known which factors influence students’ ability to seek online first language-English bilingual scientific information in countries where English is the second or foreign language.

The internet has evolved into an indispensable platform for seeking health information, particularly among transgender individuals. With an abundance of online resources available, extensive research into the credibility and reliability of this information is essential, as concerns about the quality of online resources persist. Transgender individuals are drawn to online health information due to the anonymity it offers, providing them with a sense of freedom from social isolation and the discomfort of experimenting with their transgender identity. However, it is crucial to assess the accuracy and reliability of the transgender health information available on the internet. This article aims to evaluate the quality of online transgender health resources by utilizing ten credibility indicators, along with six indicators to assess the veracity of the content.

A total of 179 online resources were meticulously reviewed after excluding any unnecessary and irrelevant ones, to ensure a comprehensive assessment.

The findings suggest that among the chosen resources, none of them meet all the criteria for maintaining high standards of accuracy and reliability in health information. In other words, none of these sources completely adhere to the established measures for ensuring that the information they provide is trustworthy and of high quality in the context of health.

The study provides valuable insights into the online realm of transgender health information, revealing both the strengths and weaknesses of the existing resources. By pinpointing areas that need enhancement and showcasing commendable practices, this research strives to promote a more knowledgeable and supportive online environment for individuals in search of transgender health information.

Online health question-and-answer (Q&A) forums have developed a new business model whereby listeners (peer patients) can pay to read health information derived from consultations between askers (focal patients) and answerers (physicians). However, research exploring the mechanism behind peer patients' purchase decisions and the specific nature of the information driving these decisions has remained limited. This study aims to develop a theoretical model for understanding how peer patients make such decisions based on limited information, i.e. the first question displayed in each focal patient-physician interaction record, considering argument quality (interrogative form and information details) and source credibility (patient experience of focal patients), including the contingent role of urgency.

The model was tested by text mining 1,960 consultation records from a popular Chinese online health Q&A forum on the Yilu App. These records involved interactions between focal patients and physicians and were purchased by 447,718 peer patients seeking health-related information until this research.

Patient experience embedded in focal patients' questions plays a significant role in inducing peer patients to purchase previous consultation records featuring exchanges between focal patients and physicians; in particular, increasingly detailed information is associated with a reduced probability of making a purchase. When focal patients demonstrate a high level of urgency, the effect of information details is weakened, while the interrogative form is strengthened.

The originality of this study lies in its exploration of the monetization mechanism forming the trilateral relationship between askers (focal patients), answerers (physicians) and listeners (peer patients) in the business model “paying to view others' answers” in the online health Q&A forum and the moderating role of urgency in explaining the mechanism of how first questions influence peer patients' purchasing behavior.

The higher-level aim of this study is to investigate the impact of health information needs satisfaction on the fear of COVID-19 for the general population. The investigation is theoretically grounded on Wilsons’ model of information seeking in the context of inquesting the reasons for seeking health information as well as the information sources the general population deploy during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This cross-sectional survey examines the correlations between health information seeking behavior and the COVID-19 generated fear in the general population through the application of a specially designed structured questionnaire which was distributed online. The questionnaire comprised four main distinct research dimensions (i.e. information needs, information sources, obstacles when seeking information and COVID-19 generated fear) that present significant validity levels.

Individuals were motivated to seek COVID-related health information to cope with the pandemic generated uncertainty. Information needs satisfaction as well as digital health literacy levels is associated with the COVID-19 generated fear in the general population. Finally, a conceptual framework based on Wilsons’ macro-model for information seeking behavior was developed to illustrate information needs satisfaction during the pandemic period. These results indicate the need for incentives to enhance health information needs satisfaction appropriately.

The COVID-19 generated fear in the general population is studied through the information seeking behavior lenses. A well-studied theoretical model for information seeking behavior is adopted for health-related information seeking during pandemic. Finally, digital health information literacy levels are also associated with the fear of COVID-19 reported in the authors’ survey.