Moderating Effect of eHealth Literacy on the Associations of Coronaphobia With Loneliness, Irritability, Depression, and Stigma in Chinese Young Adults: Bayesian Structural Equation Model Study

Abstract

Background The COVID-19 pandemic has led to an increase in known risk factors for mental health problems. Although medical information available through the internet and smartphones has greatly expanded, people’s ability to seek, eschew, and use reliable web-based medical information and services to promote their mental health remains unknown. Objective This study aims to explore the associations between coronaphobia and 4 frequently reported mental health problems, loneliness, irritability, depression, and stigma, during the COVID-19 pandemic and to assess the moderating effects of eHealth literacy (eHL) on the adjustment of these relationships in Chinese young adults. Methods The data used in this study were collected from a web-based survey of the general Chinese population, aged between 18 and 30 years, conducted in China between December 2022 and January 2023. A nonprobability snowball sampling method was used for data collection. A Bayesian structural equation model (BSEM) using parameter expansion was used to estimate the moderating effect of eHL on the relationship between coronaphobia and psychological problems. The posterior mean and 95% highest density intervals (HDIs) were estimated. Results A total of 4119 participants completed the questionnaire and provided valid responses. Among them, 64.4% (n=2653) were female and 58.7% (n=2417) were rural residents. All measures showed statistically significant but minor-to-moderate associations (correlation coefficients ranged from −0.04 to 0.65). Significant heterogeneity was observed between rural and urban residents at the eHL level, and coronaphobia was observed. The BSEM results demonstrated that eHL was a significant moderator in reducing the negative effects of coronaphobia on loneliness (posterior mean −0.0016, 95% HDI −0.0022 to −0.0011), depression (posterior mean −0.006, 95% HDI −0.0079 to −0.004), stigma (posterior mean −0.0052, 95% HDI −0.0068 to −0.0036), and irritability (posterior mean −0.0037, 95% HDI −0.0052 to −0.0022). The moderating effects of eHL varied across the rural and urban subsamples. Conclusions Using BSEM, this study demonstrated that improving eHL can significantly mitigate the negative effects of coronaphobia on 4 COVID-19–related mental health problems in Chinese young adults. Future eHL initiatives should target rural communities to ensure equal access to information and resources that can help protect their mental health during the pandemic.