Impact of social media-based intervention in reducing youths' propensity to engage in drug abuse in Nigeria.

Drug abuse is one of the serious social problems facing the globe today. There have been cases of young people under the influence of drugs; engaging in different crimes such as kidnapping, rape, and armed robbery. The goal of this study was to test the effectiveness of social media-based intervention in reducing drug abuse propensity among youths in Nigeria. The design of the study was a two-way ANOVA with repeated measures. The Substance Abuse Proclivity (SAP) scale was used to collect data for the study. The study showed that social media-based intervention effectively reduced drug abuse propensity for participants in the treatment group compared with those in the control group. A follow-up intervention after two years shows a steady decline in drug abuse propensity among youth in the treatment group, unlike those in the control group. Comparatively, the training skills type of intervention was more effective than motivational interviewing.

Modelling journalists' coping strategies for occupational hazards in their coverage of protests against police brutality (ENDSARS protests) in Nigeria.

Although journalism practice exposes media workers to different levels of occupational hazards, research on the coping strategies is limited. This study made an effort to extend literature in this direction by providing a model that explains the coping strategies of Nigerian journalists who covered the 2020 ENDSARS protests in Nigeria. The researchers surveyed a total of 470 journalists who were sampled through a respondent-driven chain referral sampling technique. It was found that journalists who covered the protests faced occupational hazards such as physical attacks, disgrace, threats, trauma, anxiety as well as fear. The coping strategies were found to include seeking social support, selective appearance, self-censorship as well as self-motivation. It was further found that perceived behavioural control significantly moderates the implementation of coping strategies. The researchers explored the implications of these results on theory, practice and scholarship.

Effect of a social media-based counselling intervention in countering fake news on COVID-19 vaccine in Nigeria.

The aim of this study was to understand the impact of counselling in countering fake news-related COVID-19 vaccine. We conducted two separate experiments. In the first experiment, we exposed the treatment group to fake news on COVID-19 vaccine through a WhatsApp group chat while the control group was not. We then tested the effectiveness of such fake news on their perception. In our second experiment, we exposed the treatment group to a social media-based counselling intervention wherein we attempted to counter the earlier fake news on COVID-19 vaccine which they were exposed to. We found that respondents who were exposed to fake news reported greater negative perception about COVID-19 vaccine than their counterparts in the control group. We also we found that as a result of the counselling intervention, the respondents in the treatment group reported more positive perception regarding COVID-19 vaccine while their counterparts in the control group who were earlier exposed to fake news on COVID-19 did not significantly change their perception. This study has highlighted the importance of counselling in countering fake news within the context of health promotion. This approach is yet to receive significant attention in literature, especially from developing countries.