Digital health literacy and its determinants among community dwelling elderly people in Taiwan

Abstract

Background: Digital Health Literacy (DHL) is crucial in navigating digital health environments, yet few studies focus on older adults.

Objective: Explore the associations of digital health information and resource utilization, IT-related social support, and barriers/enhancers to digital health service usage with DHL among older adults.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted from January 2022 to April 2023, involving 417 individuals over the age of 60 who were interviewed using an instrument for collecting data on DHL, social support, barriers/enhancers influencing use of digital health resources and personal/demographic data. Multi-regression models were used to examine the associations.

Results: Higher DHL scores were associated with daily use of digital interaction with healthcare (B = 0.28; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.07, 0.49; p = .01), daily use of other digital health resources (B = 0.22; 95% CI = 0.05, 0.40; p = .01), ease in finding assistance for online navigation (B = 0.27; 95% CI = 0.08, 0.45; p = .01), self-perceived digital proficiency ("usually very good at surfing the internet," B = 0.35; 95% CI = 0.18, 0.52; p = .01), assistance from relatives/others in internet browsing (B = 0.20; 95% CI = 0.02, 0.37; p = .02), and having access to a computer, tablet, or smartphone (B = 0.29; 95% CI = 0.11, 0.47, p = .01). Conversely, barriers like "no access to a computer, tablet, or phone at all times" (B = -0.19; 95% CI = -0.34, -0.04; p = .01), "difficulty understanding online content" (B = -0.22; 95% CI = -0.36, -0.07; p = .01), and "believing to be too old for online services" (B = -0.18; 95% CI = -0.32, -0.03; p = .02) were associated with lower DHL scores.

Conclusions: Engagement with digital health platforms, including making online appointments and accessing personal health records, is associated with higher DHL levels. Support from relatives or others, a modifiable attribute, is also associated with elevated DHL among older adults.

Keywords: Digital health literacy; IT-related social support; adding self-generated content; determining relevance; evaluating reliability; information searching.