Hanxiao Kong’s research while affiliated with Hong Kong Baptist University and other places

Mental illness is a prevalent and pressing public health problem among the Asian population, especially among young adults. This study examined the psychosocial predictors of the intention to seek counseling based on the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and the effects of mental health conditions on the relative contributions of the TPB predictors in forming the intention among Asian young adults. The survey results in Singapore (n = 232) and Hong Kong (n = 998) revealed that attitudes, descriptive norms, and self-efficacy significantly predicted the intention to seek counseling in both Asian sites. In addition, the descriptive norms-intention association was stronger among those in a better mental health condition than among those with a worse mental health condition for both samples. The findings extend the literature on the TPB, as well as provide tailored strategies to promote counseling seeking among Asian young adults.

To examine the nature and content of messages presented in a popular Chinese online community about intimate partner violence (IPV), this study utilized a two-step analytic approach that combined quantitative content analysis and automatic content analysis. We collected 90,040 messages from the online community’s IPV group. Study 1 analyzed 8,343 randomly selected messages. The findings suggest that social support is commonly presented, while only a few messages expressed blame toward the victims. Study 2 analyzed the whole sample via machine learning technique and further showed that this online community was a space for the victims to obtain informational resources and emotional encouragement.

Online health information, as an emerging field in health communication research, has attracted close attention from researchers. To identify major determinants of why individuals seek health information online, we conducted a meta-analysis that systematically accumulates the existing research findings. To that end, by integrating three theories or models for examining information-seeking behavior, we developed a theoretical framework for the current meta-analysis that emphasizing psychosocial, instrumental, contextual, and demographic factors. By analyzing the effect sizes from 44 articles representing 54 empirical samples, we found that the quality, trustworthiness, and utility of online health information were the dominant predictors of seeking it and that instrumental factors were more important than psychological ones in determining whether individuals did so. Moreover, the development of information and communication technology, the sampling method, and the type of information sought significantly moderated pairwise relationships between determinants and seeking behavior, whereas culture did not. Herein, we discuss the theoretical implications of our findings as well as directions for future research.