Diagnostic accuracy of eHealth literacy measurement tools in older adults: a systematic review.

BACKGROUND: In Canada, virtual health care rapidly expanded during the COVID-19 pandemic. There is substantial variability between older adults in terms of digital literacy skills, which precludes equitable participation of some older adults in virtual care. Little is known about how to measure older adults' electronic health (eHealth) literacy, which could help healthcare providers to support older adults in accessing virtual care. Our study objective was to examine the diagnostic accuracy of eHealth literacy tools in older adults. METHODS: We completed a systematic review examining the validity of eHealth literacy tools compared to a reference standard or another tool. We searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, CENTRAL/CDSR, PsycINFO and grey literature for articles published from inception until January 13, 2021. We included studies where the mean population age was at least 60 years old. Two reviewers independently completed article screening, data abstraction, and risk of bias assessment using the Quality Assessment for Diagnostic Accuracy Studies-2 tool. We implemented the PROGRESS-Plus framework to describe the reporting of social determinants of health. RESULTS: We identified 14,940 citations and included two studies. Included studies described three methods for assessing eHealth literacy: computer simulation, eHealth Literacy Scale (eHEALS), and Transactional Model of eHealth Literacy (TMeHL). eHEALS correlated moderately with participants' computer simulation performance (r = 0.34) and TMeHL correlated moderately to highly with eHEALS (r = 0.47-0.66). Using the PROGRESS-Plus framework, we identified shortcomings in the reporting of study participants' social determinants of health, including social capital and time-dependent relationships. CONCLUSIONS: We found two tools to support clinicians in identifying older adults' eHealth literacy. However, given the shortcomings highlighted in the validation of eHealth literacy tools in older adults, future primary research describing the diagnostic accuracy of tools for measuring eHealth literacy in this population and how social determinants of health impact the assessment of eHealth literacy is needed to strengthen tool implementation in clinical practice. PROTOCOL REGISTRATION: We registered our systematic review of the literature a priori with PROSPERO (CRD42021238365).

Increasing electronic health literacy among Latinx communities

There has been an increase in dependence on digital capacity via technology use in health care settings, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic. Helping individuals with the foundational necessity of creating an email to increase electronic health (e-health) literacy was the aim of this project. Research has suggested that increased e-health literacy programs can increase the digital capacity of Latinx individuals to be more engaged in their health care and make better-informed care decisions. Collective feedback was gathered from community stakeholders via focus groups and key informant interviews to inform the project. Quantitative data will be collected via a one-group pre-and posttest design using the Telehealth Participation Willingness Scale, General Self-Efficacy Scale, and Short Assessment of Health Literacy Spanish. Using three different measures is hypothesized to show increasing telehealth participation and increased self-efficacy. It will also show a relationship between health literacy and the ability to create an email among Latinxs. The scores from the pretest will help establish a baseline. Then, the intervention will be implemented, followed by the posttest scores. Positive results based on the measurement scores will indicate that the GenteMail digital literacy toolkit is excellent for improving e-health literacy among Latinx communities. Implications are discussed to address social work practice, policy, and future research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Experience of Overseas Research on Electronic Health Literacy and Its Enlightenment to China in Public Health Emergencie

The Internet has become an important carrier of medical information.Good electronic health literacy can enhance the public’s ability to obtain correct medical and health information with the help of electronic resources,which is helpful for the public to use health information to prevent diseases,avoid drug abuse,reduce the waste of medical resources and strengthen the self-management of chronic diseases. The improvement of electronic health literacy is of great value to the healthy development of citizens’ health literacy and healthy behavior.In view of the late start and slow development in the field of electronic health literacy in China,by combing the theoretical and practical research experience of electronic health literacy outside the region and combining with the COVID-19,this paper put forward new thinking on electronic health literacy in China,in order to provide useful reference for improving electronic health iteracy of Chinese citizens,realizing self-care,self-management and disease prevention. © 2022, Editorial department of Chinese Medical Ethics. All rights reserved.

Online pharmacy navigation skills are associated with prospective memory in HIV disease.

OBJECTIVE: The increased use of online pharmacy services in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic provides an important backdrop against which to examine the role of neurocognitive functions in health-related Internet navigation skills among persons with chronic medical conditions, such as HIV disease. Prospective memory (PM) is reliably impaired in HIV disease and is related to laboratory-based measures of medication management capacity in other populations. This study examined whether PM shows veridicality in relationship to online pharmacy navigation skills in persons with HIV disease. METHOD: Participants included 98 persons with HIV disease age 50 and older who completed the Cambridge Prospective Memory Test (CAMPROMPT) and the Medication-Management Test-Revised (MMT-R) as part of a neuropsychological study. Participants also completed the Test of Online Pharmacy Skills (TOPS), which required them to navigate a simulated, experimenter-controlled online pharmacy to perform several naturalistic tasks (e.g., refill an existing prescription). RESULTS: Lower PM had medium associations with poorer MMT-R and TOPS accuracy scores that were not better explained by other neurocognitive functions. The association between PM and TOPS accuracy was driven by errors of omission and did not vary meaningfully based on whether the intention was cued by time or an event. CONCLUSIONS: These data suggest that PM cue detection processes show veridicality with online pharmacy navigation skills. Future studies might examine the benefits of PM-based strategies (e.g., salient prompts) in supporting online health navigation skills in populations that experience clinically impactful PM failures.

Neurocognitive Correlates of Internet Search Skills for eHealth Fact and Symptom Information in a Young Adult Sample.

As the Covid 19 crisis has revealed, the internet is a first-line tool for learning critical health-related information. However, internet searches are a complex and dynamic process that can be fraught with subtleties and potential error. The mechanics of searching for and using electronic health (eHealth) information is ostensibly cognitively demanding; yet we know little about the role of neurocognitive abilities in this regard. Fifty-six young adults completed two naturalistic eHealth search tasks: fact-finding (eHealth Fact) and symptom-diagnosis (eHealth Search). Participants also completed neurocognitive tests of attention, psychomotor speed, learning/memory, and executive functions. Shorter eHealth symptom-diagnosis search time was related to better executive functions, while better eHealth symptom-diagnosis search accuracy was related to better episodic and prospective memory. In contrast, neither eHealth Fact search time nor its accuracy were related to any of the neurocognitive measures. Our findings suggest a differential relationship between neurocognitive abilities and eHealth search behaviors among young adults such that higher-order abilities may be implicated in eHealth searches requiring greater synthesis of information. Future work should examine the cognitive architecture of eHealth search in persons with neurocognitive disorders, as well as that of other aspects of eHealth search behaviors (e.g., search term generation, website reliability, and decision-making).