THE MEDIATING ROLE OF HEALTHBEHAVIOURAL CHANGE BETWEEN KNOWLEDGEAND USAGE OPTIMISATION TO UTILIZE PUBLICHEALTH SERVICES

Global discourse on health affect primarily women, causing two in every three deaths among women. Nevertheless, women are further likely than men to explore for knowledge relating to “symptoms, treatments, disease and conditions and medication”. With regards to the context of communication, the health sector utilizes social media for purposes such as behavioural change management, disease prevention and management, online learning, online and symptom reporting, outbreak management, pharmacy practice and education and professional development. Accordingly, patients and health care providers uses Facebook to exchange information, discuss health related issues, seek reviews from credible sources, participate in support groups and online health forums, find people with similar health issues and join online health forums. Prior scholars conceptualised that knowledge and health behavioural change is precursor to optimisation to increase utilization of public health services. Precisely, health behavioural change is expected to mediate the relationship between knowledge and usage optimisation to utilize public health services. Nevertheless, not many empirical studies have linked the concepts together. Thus, this study aims to investigate the influence of knowledge on usage optimisation to utilize public health services with health behavioural change as a mediator. Questionnaire survey was carried out among 240 female users of Ministry of Health (MOH) Facebook platform in Malaysia. Results based on PLS-SEM indicated that health behavioural change has a strong positive mediating effect on the knowledge-usage optimisation to utilize public health services link. Recognizing the importance of women’s contribution to society as well as consumers and benefactors of healthcare, the findings of this study can assist to improve intervention efforts of MOH Malaysia in raising awareness amongst Malaysian women. Thus, public health institutions must harness social media as its primary communication as it offers unprecedented opportunities for increased participation and information awareness for the well-being of communities and societies.