Digital health literacy and associated factors among health professionals in Kaski District, Nepal: a cross-sectional study.

BACKGROUND

Digital health literacy refers to the ability to find, access, understand and evaluate health related information and apply health information obtained from digital sources. Digital health literacy has become an essential competency for health professionals in modern healthcare settings. With the increasing adoption of several digital softwares by the government of Nepal like District Health Information System, telemedicine, mobile health applications, public assets management System, health professionals are expected to effectively use digital platforms to deliver evidence-based care and communicate with patients and other providers. This study aims to assess the digital health literacy and its associated factors among health professionals in Kaski district, Nepal.

METHODS

A quantitative cross-sectional analytical study was done among 318 health professionals working in public and private health facilities of Kaski district. Data were collected through self-administered questionnaires utilizing e-HEALS tools. Maintaining the health research ethics, multistage sampling technique was used to obtain the study participants. Data were analyzed in SPSS software using descriptive and inferential statistics including chi-square test and binary logistic regression.

RESULTS

About 46.2% of the participants had a low level of digital health literacy. Most of the health professionals used digital health technology to gain information about diseases and fewer used it for patient follow-up. Although the majority of participants (73.8%) agreed that digital health technology has enhanced healthcare delivery, many participants expressed low confidence in making health related decisions using online information and had difficulty in understanding the limitations of online health resources. Additionally, factors such as; being a doctor (AOR = 5.176; 95% CI: 1.274-21.031), working in the Pharmacy department (AOR = 3.995; 95% CI: 1.129-14.141) and having a positive attitude towards use of digital technology (AOR = 0.544; 95% CI: 0.326-0.909) were identified as contributors to high digital health literacy.

CONCLUSION

Notable, few participants had received training on digital health technology. Hence, training, practical workshops and simulation exercises should be organized to build confidence among health workers in health-related decision making using online information.