CGA 070140 Research Proposal for Thesis Yeong Mun Wai

Malaysian's Behavior in Health and Lifestyle Information Search : relationship of

information behavior, self-efficacy beliefs and health behavior

1. Objectives:

The aim of the study is to examine how different groups of Malaysian take advantage of
information about health and lifestyle in their everyday life. The study will classify people on
the basis of their purposive information seeking behavior, and further describe the
characteristics of the different groups (races/information seeking frequency) in relation to
other aspects of their information behavior, as well as their health behavior and self-efficacy
beliefs. Similar study was conducted in Iceland by Pálsdóttir, Á. (2008) and this study will
replicate the methodology used in Pálsdóttir, Á. (2008) for Malaysia scenario.

The rationale for replicating the previous study of Pálsdóttir, Á. is to examine the health
information seeking behavior among Malaysians, which this study has not been done in
Malaysia.

2. Problem statement:

The overall research questions in the study were the following:

• Is there a relationship between purposive information seeking about health and lifestyle
and other aspects of information behavior, and if so, what is the nature of this
relationship?
• Is there a relationship between information behavior and health self-efficacy beliefs, and
if so, what is the nature of this relationship?
• Is there a relationship between information behavior and health behavior, and if so, what
is the nature of this relationship?
• Is there a relationship between health self-efficacy beliefs and health behavior, and if so,
what is the nature of this relationship?

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CGA 070140 Research Proposal for Thesis Yeong Mun Wai

For government agencies, this study can be used to constitute the basis for any policy
discussions or design of appropriate policy of health and lifestyle information dissemination
channels in Malaysia.

For the health care industry, the study result can be used as a basis for their marketing effort
in multi-channels where the medical companies ( eg Pharmaceuticals/ medical devices
company) can effectively identify the target group in Malaysia and obtain an idea of the
consumer's health and lifestyle information searching behavior. This is piece of information
will be useful for company who want to venture in Health 2.0.

2. Measurements

a. Demographics : Sex, age, race, education, employment, area of residence.

b. Information Seeking clusters:

"Have you sought information about health and lifestyle in any of the following sources"?

A list of 23 information sources to be presented at each question.

Respondent to give an answer about every source on the scale 1-5 (where 1 is lowest activity of
purposive seeking and 5 is highest)
The information sources were grouped into four information channels, named: Media, Health
specialists, Internet and Interpersonal sources.

c. Information behavior:
1) Information encountering:
"Have you come across information about health and lifestyle in any of the following
sources, although you were not seeking this information?" (5: Very often - 1: Never).

2) Relevance judgments: ( the same list of 23 information sources)

"How useful do you find information about health and lifestyle in the following
sources"?
"How reliable do you find information about health and lifestyle in the following
sources"? (5: Very useful/reliable - 1: Don't know).

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CGA 070140 Research Proposal for Thesis Yeong Mun Wai

3)Barriers : 10 questions about possible barriers (identified by previous

studies)including :
1. Evaluations of cost hindrances (time and money)
2. Lack of awareness of information
3. Beliefs about the availability, accessibility, and the trustworthy of
information
4. The ability to interpret or understand the information.
(5: Strongly disagree - 1: Strongly agree).

4 )Motivation: 2 questions,
1. Interest in health and lifestyle
2. How often the topic is discussed with others, were asked.
(5: Very interested/Very often - 1: No interest at all/Never).

d. Health self-efficacy :
Measured by The Perceived Health Competence Scale (PHCS) : 8-item scale measuring both
health outcome expectancies and health behavioral expectancies.
(5: Strongly disagree - 1: Strongly agree).

e. Health behavior: 2 questions are asked as an indicator of health behavior:

1) Exercise activity:: "How often they exercised until they get breathless, their heartbeat
gets stronger or they sweat"?

2) Dietary behavior:"How often they consumed light food products (e.g. low fat milk and
cheese, fish or low fat meat) rather than more fatty food products"?

(1 is the lowest activity and 5 is highest)

3. Data Collection:

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CGA 070140 Research Proposal for Thesis Yeong Mun Wai

• Questionnaires will be distributed to business students in UM GSB, UPM and 2 more

private MBA business school in Klang Valley, namely: Sunway College and Segi
College.

• Convenience sampling, targeting an equal number of respondents from each ethnic group
(Malay, Chinese, Indian) will be adopted within the identifiable random sample.

• A total 600 survey questionnaires will be distributed.

• The sample method : Probability Sampling (Restricted)-Stratified Random Sampling

• Factor analysis will be performed to assess the validity of the construct.

4. Framework:

Information behavior

Malaysian's Behavior
in Health and Lifestyle
Information Search

Health behavior
Self-efficacy beliefs
Culture