eHealth literacy and socioeconomic and demographic characteristics of parents of children needing paediatric surgery in Sweden.
Ólöf Kristjánsdóttir, Anna Welander Tärneberg, Pernilla Stenström and 2 others
PMID 36053815WHAT IT FOUND
Parents of children needing paediatric surgery in Sweden rated most eHealth literacy domains around 'agree', but scored lowest on accessing digital services that work.
Higher monthly wages were linked to understanding health information and motivation to use digital services.
Key findings
01Most eHealth literacy domains had median scores centred on 'agree' (score 3), and the lowest domain was accessing digital services that work.
02Monthly wages were positively linked to all eHLQ domains, and two links reached the 0.10 significance threshold: understanding health concepts and language (r = .329, p = .087) and motivation to engage with digital services (r = .347, p = .070).
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
Only 30 parents were analysed, all from one Swedish hospital, so the results may not apply to other settings. Parents were recruited by convenience sampling, so they may not represent all parents needing paediatric surgery. Parents who could not read or write Swedish were excluded, and 66.7% had tertiary education, so the sample did not represent families with lower education or non-Swedish language needs. All eHealth literacy scores were self-reported on a 1 to 4 scale, with no objective measure of actual digital service use. Correlations were tested at a 0.10 significance threshold because the study was exploratory, so some links may be chance and cannot show cause. The authors state that at least 60 parents would be needed to detect a statistically significant wage relationship for one domain at a 5% threshold.
Declared interests
The paper reports funding by Forskningsrådet om Hälsa, Arbetsliv och Välfärd; no other conflicts are stated.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that parents need digital-skills training. Their scores centred on 'agree', and the lowest scores were about digital services working and suiting their needs, not about parents' competence.