Factors influencing users' rumour spreading intention during public health emergencies: based on protection motivation theory

With the development of social media and information technology, dealing with the infodemic in public health emergencies has become particularly important.Existing research on exploring the primary rumour-spreading motivation and process under the COVID-19 context is limited.This study aims to explore the factors influencing rumour spreading and reveals its mediation process and boundary condition.Based on protection motivation theory and using structural equation modelling analysing data from 423 users, the results showed that: 1) issue involvement has a positive effect on both threat appraisal (perceived severity and perceived vulnerability) and coping appraisal (self-efficacy and response efficacy), however, the effect of issue involvement on response cost is not significant; 2) perceived vulnerability and coping appraisal positively influence the intention to spread rumour by forming the attitude to spread rumour (protection motivation); 3) when the tie strength between the user and the information receivers is at a high level, the user's attitude to spread rumour has a more positive effect on intention to spread rumour.