Document Type : Original Article
Authors
1 Health Information Technology Research Center, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran
2 Vice‑Chancellery for Research and Technology, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran
Abstract
BACKGROUND: At the beginning of the COVID‑19 pandemic, the Iranian Ministry of Health and
Medical Education set up a 24‑h call center, i.e., Center 4030, to mitigate people’s worries and
anxieties, create composure, increase people’s trust, and answer their questions. This qualitative
study aimed to identify the challenges of COVID‑19‑related‑information among people in point of
experts’ views.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: This qualitative study was conducted to collect the opinions of experts
on the identification of the Information challenges of COVID‑19 during March–June 2020. The
research population included all health professionals and experts. The sampling method was initially
purposive and continued to saturate the data as snowball technique. In this study, 19 participants
were interviewed. The data were collected using a semi‑structured interview. After collecting the data,
the audio files of the interviews were written down to extract their external and internal elements.
MAXQDA version 12 software was used to organize qualitative analysis and coding data.
RESULTS: The results of this study involved eight themes, i.e., lack of planning, lack of social trust
in government, lack of COVID‑19‑integrated scientific authority in the country, conflicts of interest,
lack of integrated information sources, distracting public attention, infodemic, and poor information
quality, classified into 16 categories.
CONCLUSIONS: The main information challenges that people in Iran faced included the lack of
a scientific reference source to access accurate information, the existence of a large volume of
information in virtual networks, and a huge volume of statistics from various information channels
that caused confusion among people.
Keywords
emerging issues through a data lens: The case of China. Inte J
Environ Res Public Health 2020;17:2309.
2. Zaimova R. How Data Can Help Fight a Health Crisis Like
the Coronavirus. Belgium: World Economic Forum; 2020.
Available from: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/03/
role‑data‑fight‑coronavirus‑epidemic/. [Last accessed on 2020
Jun 23].
3. Cinelli M, Quattrociocchi W, Galeazzi A, Valensise CM,
Brugnoli E, Schmidt AL, et al. The covid‑19 social media
infodemic. Scientific Reports Article number: 16598 (2020).
4. Sohrabi C, Alsafi Z, O’Neill N, Khan M, Kerwan A, Al‑Jabir A,
et al. World health organization declares global emergency:
A review of the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID‑19). Int J Surg
2020;76:71-6.
5. Pulido CM, Carballido VB, Sama RG, Gómez A. COVID‑19
infodemic: More retweets for science‑based information on
coronavirus than for false information. Int Soc 2020;35:377-92.
6. Allem JP. Social Media Fuels Wave of Coronavirus Misinformation
as Users Focus on Popularity, Not Accuracy. University of
Southern California. Department of Preventive Medicine; 2020.
Available from: https://preventivemedicine.usc.edu/social‑me
dia‑fuels‑wave‑of‑coronavirus‑misinformation-as‑users‑focus‑o
n‑popularity‑not‑accuracy/. [Last accessed on 2020 Apr 12].
7. Analytica O. Misinformation will Undermine Coronavirus
Responses. Expert Briefings; 2020.
8. Charlton E. How Experts are Fighting the Coronavirus
‘Infodemic’. World Economic Forum; 2020.
9. Zarocostas J. How to fight an infodemic. Lancet 2020;395:676.
10. Vaezi A, Javanmard SH. Infodemic and risk communication in
the era of coV‑19. Adv Biomed Res 2020;9:10.
11. Siapka A. How to Navigate the Coronavirus ‘Infodemic’; 2020.
12. Sun P, Qie S, Liu Z, Ren J, Xi J. Clinical characteristics of
5732 patients with 2019‑nCoV infection.preprint with the Lancet
2020;? Sun, Pengfei and Qie, Shuyan and Liu, Zongjan and Ren,
Jizhen and Xi, Jianing, Clinical Characteristics of 5732 Patients
with 2019‑nCoV Infection (2/16/2020). [In press]. Available at
SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3539664 or http://dx.doi.
org/10.2139/ssrn0.3539664.
13. Pennycook G, McPhetres J, Zhang Y, Lu JG, Rand DG. Fighting
COVID‑19 misinformation on social media: Experimental
evidence for a scalable accuracy‑nudge intervention. Psychol Sci
2020;31:770‑80.
14. Orso D, Federici N, Copetti R, Vetrugno L, Bove T. Infodemic and
the spread of fake news in the COVID‑19‑era. Eur J Emerg Med
2020;27:327‑8.
15. Khan S. COVID‑19, an infodemic associated with pandemic: The
socioeconomic implications and pressure on healthcare. Pakistan
Armed Forces Med J 2020;70:278‑80.
16. Challenges of the Iranian Family in the Face of Corona. Khane
Mellat News agency; 2020.
17. Ashrafi‑rizi H, Kazaempour Z. The challenges of information
services related to the COVID‑19 Crisis. J Mil Med 2020;22:207‑9.
18. Ballantine‑Dykes F. Further resources. J Military Medicine, 2020;
22;207-209. Available At: http://militarymedj.ir/article-1-2446en.html
19. World Health Organization. Mental Health and Psychosocial
Considerations During the COVID‑19 Outbreak, 18 March 2020.
World Health Organization; 2020.
20. Wu AW, Connors C, Everly GS Jr. COVID‑19: Peer support and
crisis communication strategies to promote institutional resilience.
Ann Intern Med 2020;172:822‑3.
21. Stirling BV, Harmston J, Alsobayel H. An educational programme
for nursing college staff and students during a MERS‑ coronavirus
outbreak in saudi arabia. BMC Nurs 2015;14:20.
22. Baines D, Elliott R. Defining misinformation, disinformation
and malinformation: An urgent need for clarity during
the COVID‑19 infodemic. Discussion Papers 20‑06,
Department of Economics, University of Birmingham. 2020;
Available from: https://ideas.repec.org/p/bir/birmec/20
‑06.html.s. [Last accessed on 2020 Sep 14].
23. Dong L, Bouey J. Public mental health crisis during COVID‑19
pandemic, china. Emerg Infect Dis 2020;26:1616‑8.
24. Allahverdipour H. Global challenge of health communication:
Infodemia in the coronavirus disease (COVID‑19) pandemic.
J Educ Community Health 2020;7:65‑7.
25. Kouzy R, Abi Jaoude J, Kraitem A, El Alam MB, Karam B,
Adib E, et al. Coronavirus goes viral: Quantifying the COVID‑19
misinformation epidemic on twitter. Cureus 2020;12:e7255.
26. Sharma K, Seo S, Meng C, Rambhatla S, Dua A, Liu Y.
Coronavirus on social media: Analyzing misinformation in
Twitter conversations. 2020; Available from: https://usc‑melady.
github.io/COVID‑19‑Tweet‑Analysis/. [Last accessed on 2020
Apr 06].
27. Tasnim S, Hossain MM, Mazumder H. Impact of rumors and
misinformation on COVID‑19 in social media. J Prev Med Public
Health 2020;53:171‑4.
28. Medford RJ, Saleh SN, Sumarsono A, Perl TM, Lehmann CU.
An” infodemic”: Leveraging high‑volume twitter data to
understand public sentiment for the COVID‑19 outbreak. Open
Forum Infectious Diseases ; 1 July 2020;Volume 7, Issue 7. PMID:
33117854 PMCID: PMC7337776 DOI: 10.1093/ofid/ofaa258.
29. Shankar A, Saini D, Roy S, Mosavi Jarrahi A, Chakraborty A,
Bharti SJ, et al. Cancer care delivery challenges amidst coronavirus
disease–19 (COVID‑19) outbreak: Specific precautions for cancer
patients and cancer care providers to prevent spread. Asian Pacific
J Cancer Prevent 2020;21:569‑73.
30. Bastani P, Bahrami MA. COVID‑19 related misinformation on
social media: A Qualitative study from Iran. J Med Internet
Res 2020 PMID: 32250961 DOI: 10.2196/18932; Available from:
https://preprints.jmir.org/preprint/18932/accepted. [Last
accessed on 2020 Jun 25].
)