The role of health consciousness in online health rumour sharing: Insights from the integrated MOA–SOR framework

In the digital health communication landscape, addressing the urgent issue of online health rumour dissemination is imperative. This study conducts an empirical examination, focusing on individual-level factors influencing health rumour sharing, utilising the Motivation-Opportunity-Ability (MOA) and Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) framework. The analysis, based on questionnaire data from 320 social media users in China, reveals that health consciousness increases the propensity to share health rumours. The study finds that heightened health consciousness increases anxiety, and anxiety results in online health rumour–sharing behaviour. Meanwhile, the relationship between health consciousness and anxiety is mitigated by health literacy and time cost. This study offers theoretical implications for the field of health rumour and practical implications in the field of online health communities, offering valuable guidance for social media users and community managers to combat the spread of health misinformation.