Initial Stage of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Perspective on Health Risk Communications in the Restaurant Industry

Overview

Journal Int J Environ Res Public Health

Publisher MDPI

Specialties Environmental Health
Public Health

Date 2022 Oct 14

PMID 36231263

Authors

Xi Wang

Liang Tang

Linan Zhang

Jie Zheng

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Restaurant online review websites have made changes to adapt to customers' shifting needs during the COVID-19 crisis. Based on information behavior theory and social penetration theory, the present study investigated the changes in customers' emotions and how the volume of online reviews as an indication of sales is impacted by the instructional (i.e., with quantitative variables) and emotional (i.e., with qualitative variables) information on review websites. By comparing the same month (January-April) during 2017-2020, positive sentiment experienced a plunge, while negative sentiment showed an upsurge in April 2020. The volume of reviews was impacted by five quantitative variables (i.e., confirmed COVID-19 case number, food delivery option, takeout option, delivery fee, and delivery time) and seven qualitative variables (i.e., anticipation, fear, trust, anger, disgust, joy, and sadness). This study provides new insight into understanding information content on review websites during the crisis (e.g., pandemic) from the perspective of health risk communication.

Citing Articles

Characteristics of Collective Resilience and Its Influencing Factors from the Perspective of Psychological Emotion: A Case Study of COVID-19 in China.

Liu S, Yu B, Xu C, Zhao M, Guo J Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022; 19(22).

PMID: 36429706 PMC: 9690399. DOI: 10.3390/ijerph192214958.

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