Healthcare Students' e-Literacy Skills

To be critical healthcare consumers, patients must learn self-management skills and become active participants in knowledge management and exchange. eHealth literacy is considered critical to the development of these self-management skills. The World Health Organization identifies five core competencies required of all healthcare providers working with persons with chronic conditions, and this paper focuses on the fourth—the ability to employ information and communication technology. To supplement our literature-based argument, we also present findings from a class of first-year masters-level occupational therapy students asked to complete an existing standardized e-health literacy survey, eHEALS, as a learning activity. The eHEALS revealed that students reported confidence in their ability to critically appraise internet information but were not confident enough in those skills to use the information to make decisions without consulting a healthcare provider. It appeared that the students were not yet fully immersed in their role of healthcare professional and seemed to move between the roles of healthcare provider and healthcare recipient as they reflected on the class' answers to the eHEALS assessment. Evaluation of eHealth literacy is complex and needs to consider the multiple roles assumed by those whose knowledge is being assessed.