Pregnant women's eHealth literacy and attitudes toward internet health information and their relationship to shared decision making: a cross-sectional study.
Minju Kim, Gungeong Lee
PMID 40639864WHAT IT FOUND
Pregnant women who were better at finding and using online health information and viewed it more positively reported more shared decision making with clinicians.
Key findings
01Mean scores were 32.96 of 40 for eHealth literacy, 20.53 of 25 for internet health information attitude, and 33.38 of 40 for shared decision making.
02Higher eHealth literacy and more positive internet health information attitudes were associated with higher shared decision making.
03In the regression, high-risk pregnancy diagnosis, eHealth literacy, and internet health information attitude were associated with shared decision making.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The study used a convenience sample from a tertiary hospital in Seoul, so the findings may not apply to pregnant women in other settings. The design was cross-sectional, so it cannot show that eHealth literacy or internet health information attitudes cause higher shared decision making. All main measures were self-reported questionnaires completed online. The sample was mostly married and university-educated, and marital status was omitted from the regression because very few participants were unmarried. High-risk and normal pregnancies were analysed together, so the results may not separate the needs of those groups.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflict of interest, and no funding was reported.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that improving pregnant women's online health literacy will increase shared decision making. This was a cross-sectional survey of a convenience sample, so it measured association rather than cause.