The Relationship Between Nurses' Digital Health Literacy and Their Educational Levels, Professional Roles, and Digital Attitudes: A Cluster Analysis Based on a Cross-Sectional Study.

AIM

The current study aimed to identify digital health literacy levels among nurses with respect to their education, role and attitude towards digital technologies.

DESIGN

Cross-sectional study.

METHODS

Through convenience sampling, all Registered Nurses, managers/leaders and nurse researchers employed in Hospitals, University Hospitals and Districts were recruited and surveyed using an online questionnaire. The data collection tool assessed: (I) demographics, (II) Digital Health Literacy (DHL) with the Health Literacy Survey19 Digital (HLS19-DIGI) instrument including DHL dealing with digital health information (HL-DIGI), interaction with digital resources for health (HL-DIGI-INT) and use of digital devices for health (HL-DIGI-DD); (III) attitudes on the use of digital technologies in clinical practice. The multiple correspondence analysis was applied to identify three clusters for the education/professional role (A, B, C) and three for digital technologies' use (1, 2, 3). The one-way nonparametric analysis of variance (Kruskal-Wallis test) was applied to compare HL-DIGI, HL-DIGI-INT and the HL-DIGI-DD scores among clusters.

RESULTS

Among 551 participants, the median scores of the HL-DIGI, the HL-DIGI-INT and the HL-DIGI-DD questionnaires were 70.2, 72 and 2.00, respectively. The distribution in the clusters 'educational/professional role' was A, (58.8%); B, (16.5%); and C, (24.7%). Nurses in a managerial or coordinator role and with a postgraduate degree used digital resources with greater frequency. The distribution in the clusters 'use of digital technologies' was: 1, (54.6%); 2, (12.2%); and 3, (33.2%). The HL-DIGI-DD and HL-DIGI scores of clusters 1, 2 and 3 differed significantly.

CONCLUSION

DHL among nurses is strongly influenced by the education level, professional role, habits and attitude towards digital technologies. Nurses with coordinator roles used digital technologies with greater frequency and had a higher level of DHL.

REPORTING METHOD

The Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) guidelines were used for reporting.

PATIENT OR PUBLIC CONTRIBUTION

No Patient or Public Contribution.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

Local Ethical Committee of the Polyclinic of Bari (code: DHL7454, date: 21/09/22).