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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Digit. Health
Sec. Human Factors and Digital Health
Volume 6 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fdgth.2024.1458650

Transactional e-health literacy and its association with the use of ehealth services use in Polish societyadults: validation of the instrument and a cross-sectional study

Provisionally accepted
Paulina Smoła Paulina Smoła Urszula Zwierczyk Urszula Zwierczyk Mariusz Duplaga Mariusz Duplaga *
  • Department of Health Promotion and e-Health, Institute of Public Health, Faculty of Health Science, Jagiellonian University Medical College, Krakow, Poland

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    The transactional model of e-health literacy addresses not only the skills needed for handling online health-related information but also the capacity to communicate regarding health issues on the Internet. It also emphasizes a critical component of e-health literacy: enabling appraisal and selection of information adequate to individual needs. Our study aimed to culturally adapt the instrument assessing Transactional e-Health Literacy (TeHL) and examine the association between TeHL and the use of e-health services by Polish adult Internet users. The analysis was conducted on data from an online survey among 1661 respondents. After cultural adaptation and piloting of the Polish version of the instrument, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were performed on two samples obtained by random splitting of the original data set. The roles of TeHL categories in the use of e-health services were assessed with multivariable logistic regression models. We have found that the four-factor model of the Polish version of the TeHL instrument, consisting of 17 items, obtained after excluding item 13, shows the best fit to the measurement data (NFI=0.950, RFI 0.938, TLI=0.951, CFI=0.960, GFI=0.932, RMSEA=0.066). Regression modeling revealed that Functional e-health literacy is a significant positive predictor of the use of remote physician advice, the Internet Patient Account Portal, portals providing general health-related information, and websites allowing for checking laboratory test results. Communicative eHL was significantly negatively related to the use of general health-related information portals and positively related to the use of portals offering paid medical advice. Critical e-health literacy was a significant negative predictor of the use of remote physician advice and laboratory test results websites but a positive predictor of using portals offering paid medical advice and websites offering easy access to e-prescriptions. Finally, Translational e-health literacy was significantly positively associated with the use of the Internet Patient Account Portal, general health-related information portals, and laboratory test results websites. The Polish version of the instrument assessing TeHL is a tool of confirmed validity that can be used for e-health research in Poland. The relationships between four types of TeHL and the use of concrete e-health solutions show a complex pattern requiring further evaluation.

    Keywords: transactional e-health literacy, e-health, remote physician advice, cultural adaptation, exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis

    Received: 02 Jul 2024; Accepted: 23 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Smoła, Zwierczyk and Duplaga. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Mariusz Duplaga, Department of Health Promotion and e-Health, Institute of Public Health, Faculty of Health Science, Jagiellonian University Medical College, Krakow, 31-066, Poland

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.