Nurses’ ehealth literacy and associations with the nursing practice environment

Abstract

Aim To report on ehealth literacy levels in nurses and to explore its associations with the nursing practice environment. Background Nurses increasingly use the Internet and associated technologies to seek health‐relevant information and manage their health. Introduction High ehealth literacy is a predictor of better health outcomes in diverse populations but its levels and work‐related determinants have not been adequately explored in direct‐care nurses. Methods The sample for this cross‐sectional study consisted of 200 staff nurses and nursing assistants in Greece. Participants reported during February–March 2019 their sociodemographic and work‐related characteristics on a self‐administered questionnaire which included the “electronic Health Literacy Scale”—eHEALS, and the “Practice Environment Scale of the Nursing Work Index”—PES‐NWI. Crude and adjusted logistic regressions were performed. Findings In adjusted models, participants that scored higher on the “Collegial nurse–physician relationships” and “Nurse participation in hospital affairs” dimensions of the clinical environment had higher odds of reporting better ehealth literacy. The lowest item score in eHEALS was related to not being able to make health decisions using Internet information. Discussion Nurses’ ehealth literacy was positively associated with some dimensions of the hospital practice environment. Nurses reported higher ehealth literacy scores in comparison to other studies; however, they were not confident in distinguishing reliable health information from Internet sources. This is quite alarming because it can directly impair the ability of nurses to provide relevant and up‐to‐date evidence‐based care. Conclusion This is the first study to report internationally on the positive associations of a good working environment with nurses’ ehealth literacy levels. Implications for Nursing and Nursing Policy Nursing policy should address the ehealth literary of nurses and integrate it into continuing professional education initiatives. Special focus should be put on nurses’ ambiguity in distinguishing which ehealth information is reliable and can guide nursing practice. This should be combined with efforts to improve the nursing clinical environment and increase nurses’ participation in hospital decisions.

Digital Health Competencies Among Health Care Professionals: Systematic Review

“…A total of 1304 studies were identified from literature searches, of which 26 met the inclusion criteria (Figure 1). The majority were cross-sectional studies, of which 11 [24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34] were considered prevalence data studies, and 13 [35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47] as analytical cross-sectional studies (Table 1). Among the remaining ones, 2 were experimental studies [48,49].…”

“…Among the remaining ones, 2 were experimental studies [48,49]. The studies included were conducted over a wide range of years, from 1999 [25] to 2021 [27], and more than 65% (17/26) of them [26][27][28]32,33,35,37,39,40,42,44] have been published in the last 5 years.…”

“…A total of 8 studies [26,32,36,38,41,42,47,49] involved nurses and 7 [25,27,28,33,39,44,45] covered health care professionals, while the others involved specific roles (eg, psychiatrists [40], pharmacists [31], maternal and child professionals [30]; Tables 1 and 2). The sample size was variable across the studies, ranging from 36 [30] to 5209 participants [39] with a variable age range from 20 [36] to 68 years [27].…”

“…The methodological quality was high in 5 analytical cross-sectional studies [35,39,42,46,47] (out of 12; Multimedia Appendix 3), in 1 prevalence study [26] (out of 11; Multimedia Appendix 4), and in 1 randomized control trial study [48] (out of 2; Multimedia Appendix 5). A total of 3 cross-sectional [38,41,43] and 7 prevalence studies [24,25,[28][29][30]33,34] reported a low methodological quality.…”

Associations among eHealth literacy, social support, individual resilience, and emotional status in primary care providers during the outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant

“…Furthermore, given the complicated techniques that may pertain to the use of hardware and software systems, using online information to manage health has been reported as a source of frustration for medical professionals. 43 , 44 Additionally, web-based information is reported to both alleviate and sometimes increase stress, depending on the reliability of the information source and the way the information is used. 45 Thus, although the Internet has become the main source of mental health information worldwide, the lack of proper regulation means that its quality remains questionable, and it is difficult to judge the reliability of health information on the Internet.…”