Volume 4(1) April 2021, Journal of Community Empowerment for Health
56
Wityadarda et al. Internet-based approaches for health promotion
Vol 4 (1) 2021, 56-65| Review
DOI: 10.22146/jcoemph.57084
1. Introducton
The novel Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)
is caused by the pathogen identfed as Severe
Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-
CoV-2).
1
COVID-19 has caused a pandemic with 115
million confrmed cases worldwide, including over
2.5 million deaths based on recent World Health
Organizaton (WHO) data as of March 3, 2021.
2
This
conditon causes a major problem on a mult sector
basis, including the health and informaton sectors
which should be beneftng by the digitalizaton
era.
3
Difcultes in accessing informaton contnue
to worsen with ‘work from home’ and ‘online class’
policies which are not applicable for everyone.
Policies aimed at preventng the spread of disease
also limit people from gaining the direct informaton
that they used to get from their school or health
care providers.
4
Moreover, the lack of informaton
for these populatons can seriously impact their
overall health status including stress-induced home
environment, alteraton of dietary intake, physical
inactvity, and less social interactons.
5,6
Wellness educaton as an essental part of health
promoton that is also negatvely impacted during
the COVID-19 pandemic is actually one of the key
elements that needs to be done on a daily basis. One
soluton to face this challenge is using e-wellness
programs that were used even before the COVID-19
pandemic. The improvement of wellness knowledge
is proven to be efectve to gain the basic informaton
in maintaining overall health.
7,8
For example,
Guerrero in 2020 found that an interventon of
educatng parents about physical actvity can increase
A review of Internet-based approaches for health promotion
programs related to the COVID-19 pandemic and wellness
education
Carissa Wityadarda,
1
Gusti Ayu Sinta Deasy Andani,
1,2
Rina Rostarina
1,3,*
1
Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine Padjadjaran University, Bandung Indonesia
2
Physiology Department, Faculty of Medicine Jenderal Achmad Yani University, Cimahi, Indonesia
3
Central of Health Training, Public Health Ofce West Java, Indonesia
SUBMITTED: 20 June 2020 REVISED: 17 August 2020 ACCEPTED: 10 October 2020
ABSTRACT COVID-19 pandemic continues to have signifcant impacts in various sectors of
society worldwide, including Indonesia. One major impact of COVID-19 occurs in the health
information sector especially with social distancing regulations that inhibit people to access
health care providers. This has led to several other problems such as behavior alteration
involving unhealthy lifestyles and misleading information. Due to the limitations of social
interaction, health care providers have proposed various methods to provide health promotions
related to COVID-19 and wellness education that are accessible by the whole society with or
without Internet access. This study aimed to review the current strategies of health information
systems to increase knowledge about COVID-19 and overall wellness by implementation of
Internet-based programs. This review is based on secondary study conducted with online
search engines. Some previous studies showed that online training has improved knowledge
signifcantly. Other research also described how the success of a community education program
depends on adequate motivation and access to proper information. Three main factors that
cause the failure of community education are lack of self-efcacy, lack of information, and
distraction without proper supervision. Lack of information is due to difculty to gain Internet
access in some areas and for some populations. In conclusion, Internet-based approaches can
be implemented for health promotion programs related to COVID-19 and wellness due to the
massive growth of the Internet use in Indonesia.
© The Journal 2021. This article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.
KEYWORDS
COVID-19
Health promotion
Wellness
Internet
Self-efcacy
Self-management
*Correspondence: rostarinarina@gmail.com
Central of Health Training, Public Health Offce West Java,
Indonesia, Jl. Pasteur No.31, Pasir Kaliki, Kec. Cicendo, Kota
Bandung, Jawa Barat 40171