eHealth literacy during the COVID-19 pandemic: seeking, sharing, suspicion amongst older and younger UK populations

Abstract

Summary The containment of infectious diseases is most successful when at-risk populations have a high level of relevant health literacy (HL). To achieve this both literacy needs and patterns of knowledge sharing must be understood within the context of the disease being studied. It is also important to understand these processes from both offline (HL) and online (eHL) perspectives and amongst demographics with access to different types of information and social capital, and who have different levels of vulnerability. This paper discusses the insights gained over a series of 30 interviews with the UK residents aged either 19 − 30 years of age or older than 70 years—focussing on how they seek, understand, evaluate and convey information about COVID-19 during the current pandemic. Using thematic analysis, we identified themes around motivations to seek information, the information journey, digital choice and engagement, dilemmas and challenges of managing and appraising information, and sharing information. There was little difference in the eHL between the two age groups who both had high levels of education and were sophisticated digital citizens. The COVID-19 pandemic highlights three dominant processes in managing complex and uncertain information: some individuals may suffer from information fatigue but there was no evidence of any impact on their behaviours; others seek and share information across many networks; and there were strikingly high levels of distrust leading to complex processes of meaning-making demanding critical health literacy skills.

Experiences of Online COVID-19 Information Acquisition among Persons with Type 2 Diabetes and Varying eHealth Literacy

“…Medical information from governmental and medical authority sources is generally considered accurate and trustworthy, and Swedish society is often characterized by a relatively strong trust in governmental agencies [ 42 ]. However, contrary to our results, Sykes et al described scepticism towards governmental COVID-19 information among their participants [ 26 ]. Prior studies have indicated an association between low health literacy and low trust in information from governmental and medical webpages, although analysis of our results did not reveal any such distinction between groups [ 43 , 44 ].…”

“…Similarly, a recent qualitative article by Sykes et al described problems with making sense of COVID-19 information because of the general knowledge gap, and the large volume and conflicting nature of the information. In agreement with our findings, Sykes et al also described online COVID-19 information as having a negative impact on the emotions of participants [ 26 ]. Further, the COVID-19 disease itself has been shown to negatively influence the mental health of world citizens, causing anxiety, stress, and depression, and the surrounding infodemic has been described as fueling this effect [ 37 ].…”

“…As argued by Sykes et al, a note of caution in the pandemic and infodemic context is that discussing Internet findings with family and friends, rather than with healthcare professionals, might reduce the opportunity for misinformation to be corrected [ 26 ]. In order to have the chance to correct misunderstandings or misinterpretations, it is very important for healthcare professionals to actively encourage patients to share their Internet findings.…”

“…Understanding the information-seeking behaviour and eHL of persons with T2D can provide valuable knowledge to stakeholders and healthcare professionals for improving information and care given to this group [ 25 ]. Additionally, having knowledge about people’s experiences of online information acquisition in a pandemic context is vital for improving future communication strategies [ 26 ]. Therefore, this study aimed to explore online COVID-19 information acquisition experiences among persons with T2D and varying eHealth literacy.…”

Saturation, acceleration and information pathologies: the conditions that influence the emergence of information literacy safeguarding practice in COVID-19-environments

“…, 2021; Chen et al. , 2021; Gerosa et al , 2021; Mohammed et al , 2021; Savolainen, 2021; Thomas et al , 2021; Wang et al , 2021) and coronavirus health literacy (Bray et al , 2021; Okan et al , 2020; Sykes et al. , 2021).…”