Investigating the relationship between health literacy and acceptance of conspiracy beliefs and future anxiety in the face of pervasive diseases

Abstract

Introduction: Due to the encounter of the research community with information and the discussion of distinguishing true from false information that individuals face during a crisis, this study endeavors to determine the relationship between health literacy and e-health literacy with the acceptance of conspiracy beliefs and anxiety. The future in the face of covid-19 among graduate students of Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz has been conducted.Methods: The population for this correlational survey study of the research was the post-graduate students of Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz in the academic year 2018-2019, which included 362 individuals in the research sample. The instrumentation included a 32-item questionnaire adopted from Duplaga & Grysztar (2021). The data were analyzed using the Pearson correlation coefficient test.Results: Correlation analysis test was used to measure the relationship between the variables. It was found that health literacy and e-health literacy had an inverse relationship with acceptance of conspiracy belief and future anxiety, and increasing health literacy and e-health literacy decreased acceptance of conspiracy belief and anxiety.Conclusion: According to the findings, students with higher health literacy act more intelligently against false and fake information and future anxiety caused by it, as well as conspiracy theories related to the information. Therefore, increasing health literacy and e-health literacy of students can help to fight against the negative consequences and bad effects of health crisis and information diseases.

Keywords

• health literacy
• electronic health literacy
• conspiracy belief
• future anxiety
• infodemic