Your search

Health information engagement can help individuals to find and use reliable sources of health information to make informed decisions about their health. This helps to improve their health outcomes and prevent unnecessary healthcare costs. Drawing upon the cognitive behavioural theory, this pilot study postulated a model to understand that the consequences of information orientation in terms of information engagement (behaviour), information literacy (cognition) and information avoidance (behaviour) in post-COVID era under health context. Furthermore, the moderation effects of health information literacy (HIL) are also calculated in managing health information avoidance beahvior. This pilot study is conducted in the context of social media exposure to health information by diabetic patients in Pakistani community. The proposed model was tested using Partial Lease Square Structural Equational Modelling (PLS-SEM). The data were collected from 166 diabetic patients (active social media users) through a survey. The study findings suggest that health information orientation on social media leads to HIL and engagement. Whereas, it has significant negative impact towards health information avoidance behaviour. Furthermore, HIL significantly increases health information engagement of diabetic patients. Also, HIL moderates the relationship between health information orientation and information engagement positively, whereas between health information orientation and health information avoidance negatively.

This study aims to discover the perceived awareness, benefits and suitable strategies of the Pakistani editors of Higher Education Commission (HEC)-recognized scholarly journals regarding open-access (OA) journal publishing in Pakistan.,A structured questionnaire-based survey method of quantitative research approach was adopted to achieve the study’s objectives by collecting data from the editors of 329 HEC-recognized journals in Pakistan.,The awareness level of the respondents of the Pakistani journals is low regarding the OA concepts, resources and initiatives. The respondents of OA journals have better awareness levels than the respondents of non-OA journals. All the respondents of journals are convinced and have the view that OA journals have wider benefits for the academic community, and they need to flourish. A majority of the respondents are of the view that HEC should sponsor financial resources and technical training for OA journal publishing. The respondents of OA journals are more in favor of supporting OA journal publishing than the respondents of non-OA journals.,This study covered the lists of HEC-recognized journals of 2019. More studies may be conducted based on updated lists of HEC-recognized journals by using different research paradigms such as qualitative or pragmatic research approaches.,To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first comprehensive study on this phenomenon and is an effort to fill this gap and invigorate the scholarly literature. It may attract the attention of the policymakers, funding bodies, parent institutions of the journals and the HEC to cope with the low awareness level of the Pakistani editors regarding the OA concepts, resources and initiatives; and suitable strategies required to uplift the OA journal publishing paradigm in Pakistan.

This study has been designed to determine the perceived challenges of the editors of the Higher Education Commission (HEC)-recognized OA and non-OA journals in Pakistan regarding OA publishing. This study used a quantitative research approach and used a survey method to collect data from the editors of all 329 HEC-recognized OA and non-OA journals in Pakistan. A majority of the respondents exposed ‘no academic and monetary reward for the editorial staff; and ‘insufficient financial resources for OA publishing’ as enormous challenges for OA journal publishing. A majority of the respondents of non-OA journals were of the view that insufficient facilities for training and guidance for OA journal publishing and the reluctance of the editorial board to initiate OA publishing were the major reasons for not following OA journal publishing. This study may draw the attention of policymakers to address the challenges faced by Pakistani journals’ editors.

This study has been designed to explore the leading countries and continents in open access (OA) initiatives regarding OA journals, indexing of journals in Web of Science and Scopus, institutional repositories (IRs), OA policies, and leading universities in OA initiatives worldwide. It compares and analyses the OA initiatives of the leading continents and countries of the world and, importantly, of Pakistan and its neighbouring leading countries in OA initiatives. This study relies on two research methods: a narrative literature review and a survey of the websites. The websites’ survey of the Registry of Open Access Repository, the Directory of Open Access Journals, and the Repository of Open Access Repository Mandates and Policies was also conducted to meet the objectives of the study. It was exposed that the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Spain, Poland, Germany, Russia, Turkey, Brazil, South Africa, Australia, Indonesia, Japan, Iran, and so forth have emerged as leading contributors in OA initiatives in terms of OA journals, IRs, and OA policies in their respective continents. The majority of universities of the leading countries in OA initiatives have adopted the Green model of OA to prompt the OA publishing paradigm for a wider readership, more citations, and free access to scholarly literature. In the Pakistani neighbourhood, Iran was leading in OA initiatives, followed by India, China, Pakistan, and so forth. The present study is a comprehensive exploration of the prevalence of OA landscape geographically in leading countries and continents in terms of OA journals, indexing of journals in Web of Science and Scopus, IRs, OA policies, and leading universities in OA initiatives worldwide and with respect to Pakistani neighbouring leading countries. This study may encourage the developing countries, policymakers, higher educational institutions, and universities to adopt the OA initiatives by competing with leading contributors in OA initiatives.

This study aimed to find out the effects of demographic variable i.e. gender, age, group of studies, GPA etc. on level of academic integrity among Pakistani students. The design of the study is quantitative in nature, in which the survey research method was employed to gather data from the respondents. A self-reported questionnaire was adapted on the basis of previously developed and validated questionnaire, with the consent of the authors. The developed scale was validated with the help of experts and pilot tested. Multilevel stratified convenience sampling technique was used to collect data from 4 provinces and federal area of Pakistan. The collected data was analyzed by using SPSS 16.0 version

Individuals seek information for informed decision-making, and they consult a variety of information sources nowadays. However, studies show that information from multiple sources can lead to information overload, which then creates negative psychological and behavioral responses. Drawing on the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) framework, we propose a model to understand the effect of information seeking, information sources, and information overload (Stimuli) on information anxiety (psychological organism), and consequent behavioral response, information avoidance during the global health crisis (COVID-19). The proposed model was tested using partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) for which data were collected from 321 Finnish adults using an online survey. People found to seek information from traditional sources such as mass media, print media, and online sources such as official websites and websites of newspapers and forums. Social media and personal networks were not the preferred sources. On the other hand, among different information sources, social media exposure has a significant relationship with information overload as well as information anxiety. Besides, information overload also predicted information anxiety, which further resulted in information avoidance.