The Impact of CI on SE and HPB via Social Media Engagement in Private Healthcare Industry

Millions of people are presently being affected by the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic since year 2019, which it is continually developing. In addition, during this epidemic period, social media platforms have been extensively used to increase health protective awareness and engage with the public about preventive actions. The research objective in this study shows the researcher’s intentions of conducting a research on social media engagement in private healthcare. Under the research umbrella concept of social media engagement, a conceptual framework had been adopted from theories of “Health Beliefs Model” (HBM), “Theory of Planned Behaviour” (TPB) and “Protection Motivation Theory” (PMT). The independent variables are Self- Efficacy (SE), Consumer Innovativeness (CI) and Health Protective Behaviours (HPB). A quantitative research was conducted on 400 respondents, both local and foreign respondents from private healthcare, which residing in Klang Valley. Due to the impact of COVID-19 pandemic issues, a Non-Probability Sampling had been adopted by the researcher. In this research, Purposive Sampling had also been adopted, whereby the researcher uses selected and subjective sampling when selecting samples in surveys. The outcome from this research exposed that social media engagement in private healthcare has significant positive relationship on Self-Efficacy (SE), Consumer Innovativeness (CI) and Health Protective Behaviours (HPB). Likewise, in terms of mediating effects, Consumer Innovativeness (CI) has partially mediation on the relationship between Self-Efficacy (SE) and Health Protective Behaviours (HPB).