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Digital health literacy and associated factors among internet users from China: a cross-sectional study

Bing-Yue Zhao, Long Huang, Xiao Cheng, Ting-Ting Chen, Si-Jia Li, Xiao-juan Wang, Shui-Xiu Huang, Rong-Fang Hu et al.

BMC Public Health, 2024

702 participants · 68 citations

Abstract

As the internet develops and 5G technology becomes increasingly prominent, the internet has become a major source of health-related information. Increasingly, people use the internet to find health-related information, and digital health literacy is now a set of essential capabilities to improve their health in the digital era. However, little is known about the factors that influencing digital health literacy. This study aimed to assess digital health literacy scores and identify its influencing factors among internet users in China. Additionally, this study explored the participant’s actual skills using an additional set of performance-based items from the Digital Health Literacy Instrument (DHLI). An online cross-sectional study was conducted in August 2022. Participants aged ≥18 years were recruited to complete the survey. Data were collected using the Chinese revised version of the DHLI, the self-reported internet use questionnaire, and the sociodemographic questionnaire. We conducted multivariate linear regression analyses to explore the relationships among the sociodemographic variables, behavior of internet use, and the digital health literacy scores. In total, 702 participants completed the survey. The mean DHLI score was 2.69 ± 0.61. Multivariate linear regression analyses showed that the age groups 35–49 (β = − 0.08, P = 0.033), 50–64 (β = − 0.161, P < 0.001), and ≥ 65 (β = − 0.138, P < 0.001) were negatively associated with DHL scores. However, education level,…

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