Journal of Health Management, cilt.24, sa.4, ss.644-651, 2022 (ESCI)
© 2022 SAGE Publications.The purpose of this study was to evaluate the perceptions of individuals related to health news published in COVID-19 pandemic period in Turkey. It was also aimed to determine the factors that may affect this perception. The research population consisted of individuals in the 18–74 age range living in Turkey. Google survey method was used to collect data. A total of 1,073 people were reached from Turkey’s seven regions. ‘Health News Perception Scale’ developed by Cinar et al. (2018) was used to evaluate the perception of individuals about health news. Gender, generations, education level, marital status, the region where the city is located, number of children, time spent and trust in health news on internet, having chronic diseases, COVID-19 positive diagnosis of relatives, working status and frequency of following the health news during pandemic were variables that make a statistically significant difference in individuals’ perception of health news. As a result, it is thought that health news can make a significant difference on the health behaviour of individuals. It is important to pay attention to the quality of the news in this period, where the number of news reports on health and the interest of individuals in health news has increased.