COVID-19 Misinformation Trends in Australia: Prospective Longitudinal National Survey

  1. Kristen Pickles
  2. Erin Cvejic
  3. Brooke Nickel
  4. Tessa Copp
  5. Carissa Bonner
  6. Julie Leask
  7. Julie Ayre
  8. Carys Batcup
  9. Samuel Cornell
  10. Thomas Dakin
  11. Rachael H Dodd
  12. Jennifer M J Isautier
  13. Kirsten J McCaffery

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Abstract

Misinformation about COVID-19 is common and has been spreading rapidly across the globe through social media platforms and other information systems. Understanding what the public knows about COVID-19 and identifying beliefs based on misinformation can help shape effective public health communications to ensure efforts to reduce viral transmission are not undermined.

Objective

This study aimed to investigate the prevalence and factors associated with COVID-19 misinformation in Australia and their changes over time.

Methods

This prospective, longitudinal national survey was completed by adults (18 years and above) across April (n=4362), May (n=1882), and June (n=1369) 2020.

Results

Stronger agreement with misinformation was associated with younger age, male gender, lower education level, and language other than English spoken at home (P<.01 for all). After controlling for these variables, misinformation beliefs were significantly associated (P<.001) with lower levels of digital health literacy, perceived threat of COVID-19, confidence in government, and trust in scientific institutions. Analyses of specific government-identified misinformation revealed 3 clusters: prevention (associated with male gender and younger age), causation (associated with lower education level and greater social disadvantage), and cure (associated with younger age). Lower institutional trust and greater rejection of official government accounts were associated with stronger agreement with COVID-19 misinformation.

Conclusions

The findings of this study highlight important gaps in communication effectiveness, which must be addressed to ensure effective COVID-19 prevention.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.08.04.20168583: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementIRB: Ethics approval: Ethics approval was obtained from the Human Research Ethics Committee of The University of Sydney (2020/212).
    Consent: Completion and submission of the online questionnaire was considered evidence of consent.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Analysis: Analyses were conducted using Stata/IC vl6.1 (StataCorp, College Station, TX).
    StataCorp
    suggested: (Stata, RRID:SCR_012763)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    Correcting misinformation should be viewed as a vitally important science and health policy activity.[40] Strengths & limitations: This was a large and diverse sample of the Australian population and the longitudinal design enabled us to look at whether misinformation beliefs changed over the course of the pandemic. By design, the survey items changed across time, however this prevented us from being able to calculate longitudinal changes in the principal component derived at baseline. The sample was recruited via an online panel and social media, the majority were well educated, with a low proportion of culturally and linguistically diverse participants. A final limitation is the labelling of the misinformation items as these particular beliefs are likely contextual and subjective.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

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  2. Version published to 10.2196/23805
  3. Version published to 10.2196/preprints.23805
  4. Version published to 10.1101/2020.08.04.20168583v1 on medRxiv