Covid-19-Related Health Information Needs and Seeking Behavior among Lagos State Inhabitants of Nigeria

The outbreak of COVID-19 spurs the need for information among the Nigerian populace, and people exhibit different information-seeking behavior. Understanding information needs and seeking behavior becomes expedient to ensure the adequate provision of information to Nigerians in real-time. Hence, this study examined the health information needed and seeking behavior of Nigerians about COVID-19. The authors adopted a descriptive survey method using a Web-based questionnaire to collect data from a sample of 321 people. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, and the hypothesis was tested using Pearson’s product-moment correlation. Results show that the Nigerian populace needs information on treatments/vaccines and preventive measures of the pandemic disease; it was revealed that the majority of Nigerians actively search for information about the disease; it was shown in the findings that social media is the most accessed information source; and findings revealed that environmental, demographic, interpersonal and financial factors affect information-seeking behavior. Findings show a statistically significant relationship between health information need and information-seeking behavior of Nigerians. The study concludes that most Nigerians health information needs center on treatment/vaccines of disease while most actively search for information on the disease.