Assessing digital health literacy level among nurses in Jordanian hospitals

Abstract

Nurses with a high level of digital health literacy (DHL) play a key role in providing high-quality patient care and promoting self-care activities. This study assessed DHL among nurses in Jordanian hospitals. A cross-sectional, descriptive study design was used. Data were collected targeting 238 nurses conveniently from both public and private hospitals. A standard pre-designed tool was used to collect DHL data composed of 21 questions divided into seven subscales, each one having three items. These subscales are operational skills, navigation skills, information searching, evaluating reliability, determining relevance, adding self-generated health content, and protecting privacy. Participants mostly achieved very desirable results in operational skills, information searching, and navigational skills, with a percentage of total scores of 82.5%, 90.6%, and 81.7%, respectively. None of the demographics were significantly different from the total DHL score (p>0.05). This study provides essential insight into healthcare professionals’ DHL in Jordanian hospitals and their approach to seeking health information, determining relevancy and content, and maintaining privacy during the search for required information. Healthcare providers, including nurses, were at the frontlines in managing patients’ information effectively. These results indicate that a program to promote DHL level and skills in healthcare providers would be useful. Policymakers, health educators and public health practitioners engaged in health literacy programs might use the results of this study for informed decision-making, as well as to improve and enhance DHL levels.