Health Misinformation Literacy and Its Association with Self-Medication Practices among Young Adults in Pakistan: A Cross-Sectional Study.

Abstract

Background: Digital media is now widely used to access health information and is also a source of health misinformation. Often young adults will turn to the web for health-related choices, including trade in medications that are not always appropriate. Young adults are often turning to online health resources to make choices, including improper self-medication. But very little have been known about health misinformation literacy among young adults in Pakistan while self-medication practices. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the level of health misinformation literacy and its correlation with self-medication practices among young adults (18-30 years) in Pakistan.

Methodology: It is quantitative analytical cross-sectional study, with several participants in the study was 196 young adults aged 18-30 years with convenience sampling technique. Structured self-administered questionnaires for health misinformation literacy, health misinformation susceptibility, self-medication practices, and the impact of health information online were used to collect data. IBM SPSS Statistics v.27 was used to analyze the data. Descriptive statistics, Pearson's correlation and multiple linear regression analyses were performed.

Results: The participants exhibited moderate health misinformation literacy, health misinformation susceptibility, self-medication practices, and influence of online health information. Self-medication practices was significantly and negatively related to misinformation literacy (r = −0.254, p < 0.001) and was the only significant independent predictor of misinformation literacy (β = −0.238, p = 0.001). Both health misinformation susceptibility and sociodemographic factors were not significant predictors.

Conclusion: Positive relationships were found between health misinformation literacy and self-medication practices for the study's samples. The promotion of responsible medication use, curbing the impact of health misinformation, and increasing medication safety among young adults in Pakistan may be achieved by strengthening the digital health literacy among them through various educational interventions and evidence-based health communication.