Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Social media use for medicine information-seeking behaviour among undergraduate students via the prism of the innovation-decision process

Omoniyi J Ola-Olorun¹ , Olajire J Oyeniran¹, Ayodapo O Jegede¹, Bamidele O Ogunlade²

¹Department of Clinical Pharmacy and Pharmacy Administration, Faculty of Pharmacy, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria; ²Department of Educational Technology, Bamidele Olumilua University of Education, Science and Technology, Ikere-Ekiti. Nigeria.

For correspondence:- Omoniyi Ola-Olorun Email: niyiolaolorun@oauife.edu.ng Tel:+2348034119314

Accepted: 27 January 2023 Published: 28 February 2023

Citation: Ola-Olorun OJ, Oyeniran OJ, Jegede AO, Ogunlade BO. Social media use for medicine information-seeking behaviour among undergraduate students via the prism of the innovation-decision process. Trop J Pharm Res 2023; 22(2):407-414 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v22i2.25

© 2023 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: To assess the level of adoption of social media for medical information-seeking behaviour (MISB) among students of Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria based on the prism of Roger’s innovation-decision process theory.

Methods: The study was a cross-sectional survey of 429 students. Primary data were collected with a set of questionnaires comprising two main sections which sought to elicit information, first, on the adoption level of social media for medicine information employing a Likert-type scale with five alternative responses and weighting scores of 1 - 5, and second, on use of social media for MISB on a dichotomous (yes/no) scale. Collected data were analysed with descriptive and inferential statistics at 5 % level of significance.

Results: The results show that adoption of social media tools for sourcing medicine information among the students was at a persuasion level (MWA 2.10) and correlates with the finding on the dichotomous scale that they were barely (28.7 %) using the tools.

Conclusion: Social media for medicine information-seeking among students of OAU have not been effectively adopted and their use is infrequent. Furthermore, studies on the use of social media may be better assessed using the innovation-decision theory process model rather than a simple dichotomous scale.

Keywords: Medicine information, Social media, Innovation, Undergraduate students, Behaviour, Education, Pharmacy