COVID-19 Information Needs: a study in a Brazilian on-line health community

Abstract

An illness or health condition can be understood as a stimulus that produces an Information Need (IN). More and more individuals resort to online health communities to solve their doubts about their health situation. The COVID-19 pandemic was configured as a unique event to produce IN. In this context, the aim of this study was to identify the information needs about COVID-19 in an on-line community organized on Facebook. A thematic analysis of the posts made in the ‘EU JÁ TIVE COVID-19’ (‘I’VE HAD COVID-19’) group between May 2021 and January 2022 was performed. Seven IN themes related to COVID-19 were identified, with ‘Post-COVID’, ‘vaccination’, and ‘infection’ standing out. The theme ‘Post-COVID’ remained frequent most of the months analyzed. The investigated on-line community played the role of informational support, being a means for participants to try to fulfill their IN about COVID-19.