Exploring the Impacts of Perceived Social Support on Health Information Sharing Behaviors for college students on Social Media

• Main Authors: Ying-Xuan Chen, 陳映瑄
• Other Authors: Cathy Weng
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2014
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/q7p39v

碩士 === 國立臺灣科技大學 === 數位學習與教育研究所 === 102 === This study aims to explore college students’ behaviors of using social network to share medical and health information and investigate their current health behaviors. Based on students’ perceived social support through social networks, we tried to find the effect of it on their health knowledge sharing and general health behaviors. In recent years, with the increased popularity of public health-care system and great medical technology developments, requirement of health information has increased a lot. According to the Taiwan Network Information Center (TWNIC) 2013,more than 97% of college students have searched information online in Taiwan. It indicates that the social network is no longer just a knowledge or information source, it can also enhance people’s relationship by increasing users’ social ties. Based on above reasons, this study had college students as subjects, and tried to explore if perceived online social support is one determinant of health information sharing behavior, and also investigate the correlation between a subject’s background and these variables. A total of 800 valid questionnaires were collected from college students in northern Taiwan. The following are the research findings: 1.Whether in the perceived social support, attitude of information sharing, Information sharing behavior, or health behaviors, men got higher scores than women. 2.Student’s experience of Internet use is not necessarily correlated with their health behaviors, we should focus on the activities they do in the online social community. 3.Perceived informational social support is the main reason to affect attitude of information sharing and behavior on social networks. 4.The better attitude for online health information sharing, the more likely they share health Information online, and finally lead to better health behaviors.