Analysis Of Risk Information Avoidance Intention And Influencing Factors

Objective:This study investigated the health information avoidance intention of Internet users to understand the status quo of information avoidance intention of online users in the early stage of COVID-19,and explored the influencing factors of online users’ information avoidance intention from the perspectives of general social demographic characteristics,information avoidance attitude,subjective norms of information avoidance,perceived avoidance behavior control,related risk experience and negative emotions.Furthermore,by studying the internal relationship between each influencing factor and further analyzing the interaction between each research variable,it is helpful to further enhance the understanding of network users’ health information behavior,so as to provide theoretical and practical basis for effectively improving users’ information behavior and scientific risk communication management under similar public health crisis events.Methods:This study adopts convenient sampling method to conduct research,issues questionnaires and collects data through the questionnaire Star platform,and takes network users as research objects.A total of 780 questionnaires were collected,and728 effective questionnaires were obtained after screening,with an effective recovery of 93.3%.The questionnaire of the study mainly involves the general sociodemographic characteristics of the respondents,information avoidance attitude,subjective norms of avoidance,perceived avoidance control,related risk experience,negative emotions and avoidance willingness.In this study,IBM SPSS 24.0 and IBM AMOS 24.0 were used for statistical analysis,and P<0.05 was considered statistically significant.Results:(1)A total of 728 valid samples were obtained in this study,among which 200 respondents claimed to have avoidance intention,accounting for 27.5%;The score of information avoidance intention was 7.87±3.51.The results showed that there was a statistical difference between self-reported health status and annual family income in information avoidance intention score(P<0.05).Age,sex,education background,marriage and nucleic acid testing had no significant difference in information avoidance intention(P>0.05).(2)The results of this study showed that the total score of the respondents’ information avoidance attitude was 5.66 ± 2.61;The score of avoiding subjective norms was 11.68 ± 4.67;The score of perceived avoidance control dimension was10.95 ± 3.56;Structural equation model results show that information avoidance attitude has a positive and significant impact on avoidance intention(β=0.18,P<0.05).Avoidance subjective norms have a significant positive impact on avoidance intention(β=0.51,P<0.05)Perceived avoidance control has a significant positive impact on information avoidance intention(β=0.17,P<0.05).Therefore,the risk information avoidance intention is affected by the avoidance attitude,avoidance subjective norms and perceived avoidance control ability.The subjective norm of information avoidance is the strongest driving factor.(3)The result of this study shows that the score of negative emotion dimension is7.58 ± 1.97,and negative emotion(β=-0.15,P<0.05)had a negative impact on information avoidance attitude;The higher the negative emotion,the more negative the attitude of network users towards information avoidance;And negative emotions(β= 0.06,P>0.05)has no correlation with avoidance intention,but negative emotions can indirectly affect avoidance behavior intention through avoidance attitude.(4)The result of this study shows that the score of relevant risk experience dimension is 9.23 ± 3.36,and the result of structural equation model shows relevant risk experience(β=-0.08,P<0.05)had a negative impact on information avoidance attitude,while information avoidance attitude positively predicted information avoidance intention.(5)Relevant risk experience significantly predicts negative emotions(β = 0.18,P<0.05),and relevant risk experience(β =-0.03,P>0.05)has no significant impact on the willingness to avoid information,but the related risk experience can indirectly affect the willingness to avoid behavior through avoidance attitude.(6)The results of this study show that negative emotions play a mediating role between related risk experience and information avoidance attitude,and information avoidance attitude positively predicts information avoidance intention.Relevant risk experience significantly positively predicts negative emotions,and negative emotions can indirectly predict information avoidance intention through information avoidance attitude.Conclusions:In this study,it was found that in the early stage of COVID-19,nearly one third of respondents reported risk information avoidance intention;Self-reported physical health status and annual family income were different in risk information avoidance intention of survey subjects.Information avoidance attitude,subjective norms of information avoidance and perceived behavior control all positively predicted information avoidance intention,and subjective norms of information avoidance were the strongest driving factors affecting information avoidance intention.Negative emotions indirectly affect information avoidance intention through information avoidance attitude,and related risk experiences indirectly affect avoidance behavior intention through information avoidance attitude.At the same time,negative emotion plays a mediating role between risk experience and information avoidance attitude,and avoidance attitude positively predicts information avoidance intention.