Does Social Media Usage provide Health-related Information and increase Self-reported Health Status of Jamaicans during the COVID-19 Pandemic?

Abstract

The state of health of a person or population is assessed regarding morbidity, impairments, anthropological measurements, mortality, functional status indicators, and quality of life. This study seeks to determine whether or not social media usage influenced Jamaicans' self-reported health status and the effectiveness of using social media for health information. Non-probability sampling technique (convenience sampling) was used to get data from 1082 respondents across the island, using a web-based standardized survey created in Google Forms to collect the data. The data was then converted from Google Forms into IBM Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 25 software used to analyze data in Windows. The findings revealed that of the 1082 sampled respondents, 24.3% rely on social media and also deemed it effective for retrieving health information by rating it at an 8/10, while 19.9% did not rely on social media and considered it less effective for retrieving health information by rating it at 5/10. These findings suggest that social media positively influences those who depend on it to retrieve health status information. The model for rating the effectiveness of social media is a statistically significant one ?2 =210.347, P= 0.001. This study has also proved that social media has somewhat influenced Jamaicans to report their health status. Technology usage has been increasing over the years, and with the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, fewer persons are willing to leave their residences and visit health facilities; as such, they rely on social media to contact their doctors, retrieve health information and receive updates on their health status. Social networking is a toolkit for health-related information, e health, or digital health for Jamaicans.