The Use of Internet and Social Media for Health Information and Its Consequences Among the Population in Saudi Arabia

The Internet is being increasingly used in our lives. Along with Internet use, social media sites are especially popular and are used by many people on a daily basis. Many studies were conducted to see the people's perception and their attitude towards the use of the Internet for health information. Such studies were also carried out in Saudi Arabia, but most have been limited to a specific target sample of the population. Our study aimed to assess the perception towards and use of different platforms and search engines to seek health information in Saudi Arabia.

A cross-sectional study was conducted in Saudi Arabia during the year 2021. An Arabic online questionnaire using Google forms was sent to a randomized sample. Microsoft Excel 2016 was used for data entry, and statistical analysis was performed using IBM© SPSS© Statistics version 25 (IBM© Corp., Armonk, NY, USA).

Among the 1363 participants, 56.2% were females and 43.8% were males with a mean age of 30.73 ± 12.3. The majority were living in Western region. The most used social media platforms were WhatsApp (91.5%), YouTube (84.6%), and Twitter (82.6%), respectively. The most common medical websites browsed were the Saudi Ministry of Health (67%) and the Food and Drug Administration (54.4%). Some 40.1% of the participants had a medical consultation online from a doctor, and most of them (67.8%) trusted the online physician. Finally, most of the participants (90.9%) thought that health information on the Internet or social media contributes to raising the level of health awareness among the general population. There was a significant relationship between educational level and gender and online health-seeking behavior (p > 0.05).

The study reinforced that health information that is sought from the Internet and social media platforms has a great impact on the population, emphasizing the need for credible information sources and how to access them.