An overwhelming flood of misinformation is accompanying the pandemic of COVID-19. Fake news and conspiracy theories are so prevalent that the World Health Organization started as early as February 2020 to use the term “infodemic”. This paper is focused on the assessment of the prevalence of beliefs in conspiracy theories related to COVID-19 in Polish society. The association of support for conspiracy theories with sociodemographic variables, health literacy (HL) and eHealth literacy (eHL) was studied. The analysis reported here was based on the data from an online survey of a representative sample (n = 1002) of the adult population of Polish Internet users. The multivariate linear regression for the COVID-19-related conspiracy belief score (CCBS) and logistic regression models for the support of individual conspiracy theories was developed. The percentage of supporters of particular conspiracy theories in the study sample ranged from 43% to 56%. The CCBS was significantly associated with age, education level, vocational status and both HL and eHL. However, it was lower for persons with higher HL (regression coefficient (B) = −0.04, p < 0.001) but higher for those with higher eHL (B = 0.04, p = 0.038). The most influential predictors of CCBS were age (standardised regression coefficient (β) = −0.21) and education level (β from 0.08 to 0.16 for respondents with lower education levels and those with master’s degrees). In conclusion, younger persons rather than older, those with a lower rather than with a higher level of education, employees rather than students and persons with lower rather than higher HL were more likely to believe the conspiracy theories. Surprisingly, contrary to expectations, higher eHL was significantly associated with greater belief in such theories.

中文翻译：

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全国代表性互联网用户样本中与 COVID-19 大流行相关的阴谋论信念的决定因素

伴随着新冠肺炎 (COVID-19) 的流行，错误信息泛滥成灾。假新闻和阴谋论如此盛行，世界卫生组织早在 2020 年 2 月就开始使用“信息流行病”一词。本文重点评估波兰社会中与 COVID-19 相关的阴谋论信仰的流行程度。研究了对阴谋论的支持与社会人口变量、健康素养（HL）和电子健康素养（eHL）的关联。此处报告的分析基于对波兰成年人互联网用户的代表性样本 ( n = 1002) 进行的在线调查数据。开发了与 COVID-19 相关的阴谋信念评分 (CCBS) 的多元线性回归和支持个人阴谋论的逻辑回归模型。研究样本中特定阴谋论的支持者比例在 43% 到 56% 之间。CCBS 与年龄、教育水平、职业状况以及 HL 和 eHL 显着相关。然而，对于 HL 较高的人来说，该值较低（回归系数 (B) = -0.04，p < 0.001），但对于 eHL 较高的人来说，该值较高（B = 0.04，p = 0.038）。CCBS 最有影响力的预测因素是年龄（标准化回归系数（β）= -0.21）和教育水平（对于受教育程度较低和拥有硕士学位的受访者，β 从 0.08 到 0.16）。综上所述，年轻人比老年人、文化程度低的人比文化程度高的人、员工比学生、HL 较低的人比高的人更容易相信阴谋论。令人惊讶的是，与预期相反，较高的 eHL 与对此类理论的更大信念显着相关。