Web-based Health Information Seeking and eHealth Literacy among Patients Living with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD)

Abstract

Many people living with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) have low general health literacy; however, there is little information available on these patients' eHealth literacy, or their ability to seek, find, understand, and appraise online health information and apply this knowledge to address or solve disease-related health concerns. A nationally representative sample of patients registered in the COPD Foundation's National Research Registry (N = 1,270) was invited to complete a web-based survey to assess socio-demographic (age, gender, marital status, education), health status (generic and lung-specific health-related quality of life), and socio-cognitive (social support, self-efficacy, COPD knowledge) predictors of eHealth literacy, measured using the 8-item eHealth literacy scale (eHEALS). Over 50% of the respondents (n = 176) were female (n = 89), with a mean age of 66.19 (SD = 9.47). Overall, participants reported moderate levels of eHealth literacy, with more than 70% feeling confident in their ability to find helpful health resources on the Internet. However, respondents were much less confident in their ability to distinguish between high- and low-quality sources of web-based health information. Very severe versus less severe COPD (β = 4.15), lower lung-specific health-related quality of life (β = -0.19), and greater COPD knowledge (β = 0.62) were significantly associated with higher eHealth literacy. Higher COPD knowledge was also significantly associated with greater knowledge (ρ = 0.24, p = .001) and use (ρ = 0.24, p = .001) of web-based health resources. Findings emphasize the importance of integrating skill-building activities into comprehensive patient education programs that enable patients with severe cases of COPD to identify high-quality sources of web-based health information. Additional research is needed to understand how new social technologies can be used to help medically underserved COPD patients benefit from web-based self-management support resources.

Promoting self‐efficacy in patients with chronic disease beyond traditional education: A literature review

“…The main characteristics of the sources reviewed were the implementation of an intervention to promote self‐management of the patients' disease(s) and identify behaviour effects and promotion of regimen adherence. Interventions included mobile phone applications (Baron, Hirani, & Newman, ; Hardinge et al, ), gaming (Hickman, Clochesy, Pinto, Burant, & Pignatiello, ), telehealth that included telephone or video streaming (Cameron et al, ; CottrellGalea, O'Leary, Hill, & Russell, ; Fors et al, ; Kennedy et al, ), self‐management programmes (Bratzke, ; Cutler et al, ; Devan et al, ; Fortin, Chouinard, Diallo, & Bouhali, ; Horrell et al, ; Lin, Liu, Hsu, & Tsai, ; Win et al, ), social media (van Berkel et al, ; Wilson et al, ), surveys addressing self‐efficacy (Henselmans et al, ; Koch et al, ; Roncoroni, Tucker, Wall, Wippold, & Ratchford, ; Wu et al, ) and health literacy survey (Mackey, Doody, Werner, & Fullen, ; Stellefson et al, ).…”

“…Koch et al () described support systems as being formal—health organization groups—and informal—peer groups and family. Several reviewed articles identified a lack of support, either formal or informal, being a barrier to self‐efficacy and positive patient outcomes (Cameron et al, ; Fors et al, ; Henselmans et al, ; Koch et al, ; Stellefson et al, ; Willis, ).…”

Qualitative analysis of UK and USA open mental health Facebook groups for mental health support (Preprint)

“…Despite the benefits and rising interest in the field [56,57], many MHapps may lack robust scientific grounding [52,[58][59][60]. Similar trends in health information seeking may be observed with blogging [61,62], and microblogging [25,63].…”

The Perceived Availability of Online Social Support: Exploring the Contributions of Illness and Rural Identities in Adults with Chronic Respiratory Illness

“…There is growing interest in how Internet and social media use impacts patients with COPD [27]. Social media, particularly platforms that provide support for chronic illnesses (e.g., COPD), extend patients' access to informational and emotional resources enabling them to better cope with their illness [8].…”

“…Interestingly, a greater perception of online social support existed among participants with COPD, who were younger and had low COPD knowledge. Although there is evidence that greater respiratory symptom severity predicts patients' Internet use [27,32], research has demonstrated that high COPD knowledge and less severe symptoms are associated with a higher degree of eHealth literacy (i.e., ability to access, understand, and evaluate online information) [27]. Patients who are at a critical point of illness identity negotiation may not be able to maximize the potential of online social support, because they do not have the optimal skills to do so.…”