The relationship between health literacy and perceived stress and the moderating role of corona infodemic in students of Razi University

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

• Amin Zare ¹
• soliman shafee ²
• Morvarid Tasa ³
• Mehran Faridi ⁴

¹ Associate Professor, Department of Information Science, Faculty of Social Sciences, Razi University, Kermanshah, Iran.

² Ph.D in Information Science, Head of UAST of Kermanshah province, Kermanshah, Iran

³ M.A.in Information Science, Faculty of Social Sciences, Razi University, Kermanshah, Iran

⁴ M.A. in Information Science, Faculty of Social Sciences, Razi University, Kermanshah, Iran.

10.22067/infosci.2025.89023.1216

Abstract

Introduction: The importance of health information literacy and its impact on people's health, especially in critical situations such as the Corona epidemic, when the world community was faced with the uncontrollable dissemination of news and sometimes unreliable information, became more evident. On the other hand, perceived stress is the feeling and perception that a person has about his stress level.
Methodology: In terms of type, the present research is in the category of applied research, and in terms of data collection method, it is a survey-descriptive research. To calculate the sample size, Morgan's table was used and the sample size was determined to be 375 people. A simple random sampling method was used for sampling. The research data were collected using a questionnaire. The data were analyzed using Smart PLS software at a descriptive and inferential level.
Findings: The findings showed that the covariance between evaluation and perceived stress is positive and high. This means that these two variables tend to increase or decrease together. On the other hand, the covariance of accessibility and perceived stress is negative. This means that with decreasing access to information, the amount of perceived stress increases. Also, based on the research findings, the modulating variable of infodemia has a significant effect on the relationship between health information literacy and perceived stress. Also, the findings indicated that the dimensions of health literacy have the power to predict perceived stress.
Conclusion: In infodemic conditions, due to the fact that the acquisition, analysis and evaluation of health information occurs in unusual and critical conditions and contexts, the independent variable (health information literacy) can have a different effect on the dependent variable (stress). perceived) expected.

Keywords

• health literacy
• perceived stress
• infodemic
• covid-19

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