Journal of Education and Health Promotion

Abstract BACKGROUND: The widespread occurrence of COVID‑19 has caused people to seek information
from various sources such as virtual social networks, which can positively or negatively affect one’s
mental status. In this article, we present the role of virtual social networks in shaping people’s attitudes
toward COVID‑19 in Iran.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: This is an applied descriptive study, in which 1010 users of virtual
social networks were surveyed through an electronic questionnaire. Data were analyzed with SPSS,
Excel, and Rapid Miner software. The FP‑growth technique was used to investigate the concurrence
of choices in multiple‑choice questions, and the Mann–Whitney and the Kruskal–Wallis tests were
used to determine the correlation of the mean of each dimension with demographic data. Moreover,
the Wilcoxon signed‑rank, the Shapiro–Wilk, and the Kolmogorov–Smirnov tests were used.
RESULTS: Virtual social networks use increased significantly (40%) after the COVID‑19 outbreak.
According to users, the greatest psychological impact of virtual social networks was the induction
of anxiety (46.43%) and the most common use was to learn about COVID‑19 prevention and
treatment (69.3%). Based on the findings, there were no significant differences between the
“awareness,” “behavior intention,” and “attitude and trust” and the users’ marital status, age group,
educational degree, and gender.
CONCLUSION: Although social networks have enriched the public knowledge, they increased the
individuals’ anxiety mostly because of controversial news and disperse of misinformation which in turn
misled the users. The social networks play an important role in directing the behavioral inclinations.
Accordingly, it is recommended that the authorities in healthcare system establish authentic and
formal webpage in these social networks to manage controversial and voluminous information.

Abstract Population aging is a phenomenon expanding around the world and will be increase the incidence
of chronic diseases and health costs. This study was conducted according to the preferred reporting
items for systematic reviews and meta‑analyses (PRISMA). A comprehensive literature search was
performed on 4 databases (Web of Science, PubMed, Science Direct, and ProQuest) for English
language studies from January 1, 2000, to December 31, 2019. The keywords used to extract relevant
contents were “e‑health,” “Elderly care,” “Self‑care,” “challenge,” “Opportunity” etc., The search
strategy led to a total of 638 potentially relevant papers, of which 19 papers met the inclusion criteria.
The results showed that the challenges of using mobile health in elderly self‑care can be divided into
technical, human and managerial challenges. The resulting opportunities include reducing health care
costs; no need to visit verbal and remote access to elderly information. The use of mobile health in
the elderly has advantages and disadvantages. One of the advantages of that is improving physical
activity and reducing care costs, but it may break the privacy. The disadvantages of that can be
resolved by educating the elder men.

Abstract