Pietro Del Giudice|Giulia Bravo|Marco Poletto|Anna De Odorico|Alessandro Conte|Laura Brunelli|Luca Arnoldo|Silvio Brusaferro
Correlation Between eHealth Literacy and Health Literacy Using the eHealth Literacy Scale and Real-Life Experiences in the Health Sector as a Proxy Measure of Functional Health Literacy: Cross-Sectional Web-Based Survey
University of Udine|University of Udine|University of Udine|University of Udine|University of Udine|University of Udine|University of Udine|University of Udine
backgroundthe ehealth literacy scale eheals tool selfassessment perceived comfort skills using internet source healthrelated informationalthough evidence exists reliability construct structural validity scale lack evidence relation proposed norman skinner theoretical lily model ehealth literacy particular clear whether higher level health literacy positively influence electronic health ehealth literacy measured ehealsobjective study aim assess whether reallife experiences studying working health field proxy higher functional health literacy correlate selfreferred ehealth literacy measured ehealsmethods webbased survey conducted among adults living northeast italy using italian version eheals itehealsin order able measure effect higher functional health literacy ehealth literacy divided sample two groups respectively characterized studying working experience health sector lack thereofmean differences eheals calculated using test effect size evaluated using cohen dto ensure validity iteheals evaluated psychometric properties internal consistency dimensionality construct validity evaluating correlation respondents age gender educational attainment selfrated health use internet healthrelated purposes working statusresults total 868 respondents completed iteheals included analysis 259 working studying experience health fieldmean sd eheals total score 282 62 whole sample statistically significant differences p001 two groups higher health literate group scoring significantly better 319 59 vs 267 56 respectively standardized mean difference cohen 09interestingly found weak yet significant correlation ehealth literacy respondent characteristics higher health literate group measured positive spearman correlation coefficients age 011 p001 educational attainment 019 p002 selfrated health 014 p024also line current literature correlation eheals score frequency internet use healthrelated purposes significant groups 032 p001 015 p001 higher lower health literacy group respectivelyin study could find difference related gender significant difference working status present considering sample whole p03 conclusionsour study demonstrates sizeable effect higher levels functional health literacy eheals score corroborating initially proposed norman skinner lily model ehealth literacy