Abstract | In recent years, the Internet and the media have become important sources of information about health and COVID-19. Consequently, throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, people have increasingly turned to various traditional media and the Internet to access information about COVID-19 and general health. This master's thesis aims to investigate the relationship between cardiovascular patients' perceived understanding of foreign languages, their preferred media and Internet sources, and the time spent gathering COVID-19 and general health-related information. The study was conducted as a part of the University of Rijeka multidisciplinary scientific research project “Psychological changes in patients with acute heart failure during the COVID-19 epidemic”. The participants in the study were 148 cardiovascular patients at the Clinic for Cardiovascular Diseases of the Clinical Hospital Center in Rijeka. The data for this study were obtained by means of a custom-built questionnaire which elicited information about the patients' native languages, the foreign languages learned through formal and informal education, and their ability to understand foreign languages (English, German, Italian, French and Russian) in spoken and written form. Finally, it investigated their preferred sources of information on COVID-19 and general health, the time spent searching for such information, and the topics they sought. The results indicate a negative correlation between the age of the participants and the use of the Internet to gather COVID-19 and health-related information. However, they show a positive correlation between age and traditional media. The oldest age group (born before 1953), reported the worst comprehension of the English language, spent the most time gathering information, and used mainly traditional media. The middle group (born between 1953 and 1967) spent an average amount of time information-seeking, while the youngest group (born after 1967) reported the best understanding of English, spent the least time seeking information and used the Internet the most. This study aims to fill the knowledge gap in the field by providing insights into cardiovascular patients' seeking for health-related information and information of COVID-19 in traditional media and on the Internet. |