The intercorrelations of the students’ perceptions of reliability of
health information sources as well as the intercorrelations of the use
of health information sources are shown in Table 3. In the correlation
coefficients matrix, the lower left side of the main diagonal represents
the correlation coefficients between the perceptions of reliable health
information source, and the upper right side of the main diagonal
represents the correlation coefficients between health information
source usage. The evaluation based on the correlation between the
students’ perceptions of reliable health information sources showed that
the correlation coefficient between the students’ perception of the
pharmacist as reliable health information source and the perception of
the nurse as a reliable health information source was the highest
(r =0.82; p <0.001). In order of the values, the
correlation coefficient between pharmacists and other healthcare
professionals (r =0.75; p <0.001) and the
correlation coefficient between doctors and nurses (r =0.72;p <0.001) were close. Correlations between reliability
perceptions of health workforce information sources (doctor, nurse,
pharmacist and other health workers) were generally higher (0.51–0.82);
all of these were statistically significant (p <0.001).
In addition, in terms of reliability perception, the correlation between
television and radio, which is denoted as “traditional” media, was
moderate and statistically significant (r =0.64;p <0.001). An evaluation made based on the correlations
between the students’ use of health information sources showed that the
correlation coefficient between the use of pharmacists and nurses was
the highest (r =0.80; p <0.001). This is followed
by the correlation between doctors and nurses (r =0.74;p <0.001). Intercorrelations between the use of the
health workforce as information sources (doctor, nurse, pharmacist,
other health workers) was generally higher (0.53–0.80); all these
values were statistically significant (p <0.001).
Table 3. Intercorrelation coefficients of health information
source reliability perceptions and uses