ArticleFrontiers in public health2026
Digital health literacy and associated factors among community-dwelling older adults with multimorbidity: a cross-sectional study.
Article in Frontiers in public health, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Digital health technologies are increasingly embedded in chronic disease management, yet older adults with multimorbidity may have difficulty accessing, evaluating, and applying digital health information. This study assessed digital health literacy (DHL) and examined its sociodemographic, clinical, digital, and psychosocial correlates among community-dwelling older adults with multimorbidity. Methods: This community-based cross-sectional study included a convenience sample of 345 adults aged 60 years or older with at least two physician-diagnosed chronic conditions who were recruited from three community hospitals in Hefei, China, between November 2025 and February 2026. DHL was measured using the 15-item Digital Health Literacy Scale. Hierarchical linear regression evaluated associations with sociodemographic and clinical characteristics, Internet use, technology perceptions, health activation, technophobia, and reciprocal social support. Sensitivity and exploratory moderation analyses were also conducted. Results: The median DHL score was 39.00 (interquartile range, 27.00-55.00). In the fully adjusted model, older age was associated with lower DHL, whereas higher educational attainment, monthly income above 2,000 CNY, and longer daily Internet use were associated with higher DHL. Considering digital health information only slightly useful (B = -6.753; 95% CI, -9.144 to -4.363) and reporting difficulty using digital health tools (B = -3.855; 95% CI, -6.545 to -1.165) were associated with lower DHL. Higher health activation (B = 0.057; 95% CI, 0.013 to 0.100) and reciprocal social support (B = 0.253; 95% CI, 0.142 to 0.365) were associated with higher DHL, whereas technophobia was associated with lower DHL (B = -0.232; 95% CI, -0.327 to -0.138). The final model had an adjusted Conclusion: DHL was modest and was associated with socioeconomic resources, digital exposure, technology perceptions, health activation, technophobia, and reciprocal social support. Interventions should combine accessible digital-skills training with efforts to improve usability, reduce technology-related fear, strengthen self-management capacity, and provide trusted human support. Because of the cross-sectional design and construct overlap, these findings should not be interpreted causally.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.