Social media use, online health information seeking and knowledge on hypertension among undergraduate students of FMHS, UPM

Selvanesan, Kasendra and Xuan, Low Zhi and Noorazalan, Akmal Aiman (2020) Social media use, online health information seeking and knowledge on hypertension among undergraduate students of FMHS, UPM. [Project Paper] (Submitted)

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Abstract

Abstract Introduction: Hypertension prevalence among Malaysian adults aged 18 and above is relatively high at around 30%o, and is also reported to be the highest risk factor athibutable to mortality in Malaysia. Diagnosis rate is often missed among young adults and can lead to a rapid onset of uncontrolled disease and complications. Good knowledge on hypertension has been related to a favourable outcome. One of the more popular methods of seeking knowledge on medical conditions in young adults is through the online medium. This study aims to determine the social media use, online health information seeking and knowledge on hypertension among undergraduate students in a medical and health sciences faculty of a public university in Malaysia. Materials and method: A cross-sectional study design was done for this study that was conducted among the undergraduate students of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences (FHMS), Universiti Putra Malaysia (IPM) to look at the socio-demographic factors and online health seeking and their level of knowledge on hypertension. The participants for this study were selected via simple random sampling. The research instrument was an online questionnaire that consists of four sections capturing information on : (1) socio-demographic data; (2) social media use; (3) online health information sought ; and (4) knowledge of hypertension. The data was analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences progpm (SPSS) version 25. Independent T tests and one-way ANOVA were conducted to identiff factors associated with knowledge of hypertension among respondents. Result: Based on 286 respondents, their mean (sd) age was 21(1.2) years. The majority of respondents were female ,207(73-I%), Malay, 177(61.9%), taking the medical degree course 127 (44.4%), and in the second year of study, 11 l(38.8%), with an mean of 9.50 (4.50) hours of internet usage per day. A large number of respondents 196 (68.5%) looked for hypertension information online, mostly general information about hypertension 268 (93.7%). The mean knowledge score for hypertension score was 8.32 (1.46) which is classified as good knowledge. Knowledge of hypertension was found to be significantly associated with race (p<0.001), the type of undergraduate course (p<0.001), year of study (p<0.001) and type of health information searched online (p:0.010). Conclusion: This study reports good knowledge on hypertension among FHMS UPM students. Those who were of indian ethnicity, took the Medicine (MD) course, in 5th year and searched information of hypertension online had significantly higher scores.

Item Type:	Project Paper
Faculty:	Faculty of Medicine and Health Science
Depositing User:	Ms Norafizah Radzuan
Date Deposited:	04 Sep 2023 03:17
Last Modified:	04 Sep 2023 03:17
URI:	http://psaspb.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/1103

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