Institutional, Socio-Cultural and Technical Challenges to Digital Health Literacy among Universities' Students

Abstract

The present study is an effort to probe into different kinds of institutional, socio-cultural and technical challenges to digital health literacy. Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) by Davis (1985) was used as grounded theory that depicted that technology usage was affected by Perceived Ease of Use (PEOU) and Perceived Usefulness (PU). This study included different objectives and tried to explore different factors, causing as barriers to digital health literacy. Qualitative portion of the research tried to answer to overcome the challenges identified. The research, which was conducted in 16 Higher Education Commission (HEC), Pakistan’s recognized universities in Lahore, used mixed research method. Both male and female students ranging from Bs programs to PhD programs were the focus of the research. Quantitative data was collected through survey method using stratified random sampling as there were different kinds of strata in population i.e. general universities, health sciences universities, engineering universities and animal sciences universities. The research encompassed a total of 89664 students in 16 universities, from which sample size (1513) was drawn through research advisor table (2006). Proportional allocation formula was used to specify the number of respondents from each university. Non-parametric statistics was used since data was not normal. Kruskal-Wallis H test and Mann-Whitney U test were applied to measure the difference of effect of groups of independent variable on the dependent variable. For qualitative portion eight Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) and eight in-depth interviews were conducted, each and every FGD was including six students who were randomly selected. Results of quantitative portion depicted that belonging to different types of institutions, age groups, and levels of educations etc. were differently affecting the level of usage and that of expertise in digital health literacy among university students. Results of qualitative portion elaborated different kinds of health information sources among university students i.e. doctors’ advice, media, internet and seminars and so on so forth. Different themes, considered as barrier to digital health literacy, were also drawn, whilst different kinds of solutions to overcome the barriers were also explored through FGDs.