Table 2.
Frequency of thematic categories from posts delivered by individual and government accounts.
| Thematic categories | Individuals (n=644), n (%) | Government (n=273), n (%) | P valuea | |
| Sharing knowledge/information | 567 (88.0) | 258 (94.5) | .003 | |
|
|
Situation update about COVID-19b | 287 (44.6) | 108 (39.6) | .16 |
|
|
General knowledge about coronavirus pneumonia | 206 (32.0) | 82 (30.0) | .39 |
|
|
Advice on preventive measures | 114 (17.7) | 56 (20.5) | .32 |
|
|
Policies, guidelines, and official actions | 95 (14.8) | 69 (25.3) | <.001 |
|
|
Human-to-human transmission | 79 (12.3) | 27 (9.9) | .30 |
|
|
Fight against rumors | 46 (7.1) | 23 (8.4) | .50 |
|
|
Cause of viral emergence | 44 (6.8) | 14 (5.1) | .33 |
|
|
Public response during the epidemic | 43 (6.7) | 0 (0.0) | <.001 |
|
|
Instrumental support | 13 (2.0) | 29 (10.6) | <.001 |
|
|
Infection and illness experience | 10 (1.6) | 2 (0.7) | —c |
|
|
Seeking social support | 10 (1.6) | 0 (0.0) | —c |
|
|
Request for information transparency | 8 (1.2) | 0 (0.0) | —c |
|
|
Reports of scientific research | 3 (0.5) | 0 (0.0) | —c |
|
|
Seeking close contact | 0 (0.0) | 2 (0.7) | —c |
| Emotional exchange | 321 (49.8) | 82 (30.0) | <.001 | |
|
|
Showing empathy to or blessing affected people | 86 (13.4) | 14 (5.1) | <.001 |
|
|
Blaming people or organizations | 78 (12.1) | 3 (1.1) | <.001 |
|
|
Providing reassurance about risk | 73 (11.3) | 30 (11.0) | .88 |
|
|
Expressing worry or fear about the risk | 70 (10.9) | 0 (0.0) | <.001 |
|
|
Praising people or organizations | 53 (8.2) | 40 (14.7) | .003 |
|
|
Warning about the epidemic | 48 (7.5) | 11 (4.0) | .05 |
| Seeking information | 36 (5.6) | 0 (0.0) | <.001 | |
aP values were calculated using a Pearson chi-square test.
bCOVID-19: coronavirus disease.
cCell with expected frequency less than 5 and thereby P values from the chi-square test were not available.