Exploring the Relationship between Health Information Literacy and Health Behaviors of the Elderly
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Abstract
Background: Population aging and health issues are one of the most crucial issues worldwide. Health behaviors are the most direct factor affecting the health of the elderly. This study aims to explore the relationship between the health information literacy and health behaviors of the elderly.
Methods: A hypothesis model for the influence of health information literacy on health behaviors of the elderly was constructed. Based on survey data of 382 elderly people aged 60 and above in Hangzhou, China, from March 2022 to May 2022, the relationship between the health information literacy and health behaviors of the elderly was studied by using quantitative statistics and the structural equation model.
Results: The health information literacy of the elderly had a significant positive impact on their health behaviors (P<0.01). Health information seeking played a partial mediating role between health information literacy and health behaviors. Social support exerted a significant moderating effect between health information literacy and health behaviors (P<0.05) and between health information literacy and health information seeking (P<0.05).
Conclusion: Health information literacy is the decisive factor of the elderly's health behaviors. The higher level of health information literacy, the more health information seeking, thus promoting more active health behaviors.
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31. Andrews JA, Brown LJ, Hawley MS, et al (2019). Older adults’ perspectives on us-ing digital technology to maintain good mental health: Interactive group study. J Med Internet Res, 21(2): e11694.
2. Black C, Roos LL, Roos NP (2005). From Health Statistics to Health Information Sys-tems: A New Path for the Twenty-First Century. Oxford University Press, UK, pp.: 1-5.
3. Huang K, Guo M, Hao XJ, et al (2020). An analysis of research on health infor-mation literacy during public health emergency and its implications. Libr J, 39(7):59-69.
4. Pan QY, Ouyan MY (2017). Research pro-gress of domestic health literacy. Chinese J Med Manag S, 7(3):67-72.
5. Suri VR, Chang YK, Majid S, et al (2014). Health information literacy of senior citizens-a review. Commun Comput Inform Sciences, 492(11):128-37.
6. Kobayashi LC, Wardle J, Wolf MS, et al (2015). Cognitive function and health lit-eracy decline in a cohort of aging eng-lish adults. J Gen Intern Med, 30(7):958-64.
7. Gochman DS (1988). Health Behavior. Springer, Boston, MA, USA, pp.: 3-17.
8. Liu HL, Jin W, Wei XM, et al (2018). Con-ceptual framework and questionnaire design of healthy behaviors survey. Health Educ Health Promot, 13(1):19-22.
9. Zhao X (2014). Relationships between sources of health information and dia-betes knowledge in the U.S. Hispanic population. Health Commun, 29(6):574-585.
10. Patricia GC, Carmen GP, Noelia SA (2022). Aging and gender health gap: a multi-level analysis for 17 European countries. Soc Indic Res, 160(2):1051-69.
11. Li WY, Liu J, Yu GL, et al (2015). The appli-cation and prospects of knowledge-attitude-behavior theory in nursing work. J Nurs Sci, 30(06):107-10.
12. Hamzah MR, Mohamad E, Abdullah MY (2016). Influence of health literacy on health information seeking behavior among students in public university. J Komun, 32(2): 405-24.
13. Han JT, Fan WG, Luo XL, et al (2016). Re-search progress on the effect of user health information search on health behavior. Inform Doc Serv, 221(2):48-55.
14. Ali H (2011). Exchanging value within indi-viduals’ networks: social support impli-cations for health marketers. J Market Manag-Uk, 27(3-4): 316-35.
15. Zhao DX (2018). Review on domestic re-search status of online health communi-ty. Libr Inform Serv, 62(9):134-42.
16. Donelle L, Hoffman-Goetz L, Gatobu S, et al (2009). Comprehension of Internet-based numeric cancer information by older adults. Inform Health Soc Care, 34(4):209-24.
17. Aurea G, Irene A, Qi G (2021). Visualizing health and well-being inequalities among older Europeans. Soc Indic Res, 155(2):479-503.
18. Sirbu AC, Brezuleanu MM, Tiganas CG, et al (2022). Determinants of subjective well-being among European union's older adults. Transform Bus Econ, 21(2A):671-89.
19. Wang FZ, Luo AJ, Xie WZ, et al (2013). Development of health information lit-eracy self-rating scale and its reliability and validity test. China J Mod Med,23(30):89-93.
20. Hu YQ, Zhou LS (2012). A study on the re-liability and validity of the Chinese ver-sion of the health behavioral ability self-assessment scale. Chin J Nurs,47(3):261-62.
21. Qu XG. Study on the behavior situation and influencing factors of health self-management among residents [PhD the-sis]. School of Medical Sciences, Hang-zhou Normal University, China; 2016.
22. Liang TP, Ho YT, Li YW, et al (2011). What drives social commerce: the role of so-cial support and relationship quality. Int J Electron Comm, 16(2): 69-90.
23. Levin ZD, Lemish D, Gofin R (2011). Me-dia health literacy: Development and measurement of the concept among adolescents. Health Educ Res, 26(2):323–35.
24. Eriksson-Backa K, Ek S, Niemela R, et al (2012). Health information literacy in everyday life: a study of Finns aged 65-79 years. Health Informatics J, 18(2):83-94.
25. Piculell E, Skr L, Berglund JS, et al (2020). A concept analysis of health communica-tion in a home environment: perspec-tives of older persons and their infor-mal caregivers. Scand J Caring Sci, 35(3):107-14.
26. Becker AE, Connor M, Anderson RH (1975). Tetralogy of Fallot: a morpho-metric and geometric study. Am J Cardi-ol, 35(3): 402-12.
27. Wildenbos GA, Jaspers MWM, Schijven MP, et al (2019). Mobile health for older adult patients: Using an aging barriers framework to classify usability prob-lems. Int J Med Inform, 124: 68-77.
28. De Graaf A, Bas VD P, De Bruijn GJ (2015). Effects of issue involvement and framing of a responsible drinking mes-sage on attitudes, intentions, and behav-ior. J Health Commun, 20(8):989-94.
29. Vâjâean CC, Băban A (2015). Emotional and behavioral consequences of online health information-seeking: the role of eHealth literacy. Cognition Brain Behav, 19(4): 327-45．
30. Hou XN, Chen JL, Wang JD, et al (2020). The Overall Context of the Traditional Chinese Medicine Information Behav-ior of the Elderly Based on Grounded Theory. Libr Inform Serv, 64(6):79-89.
31. Andrews JA, Brown LJ, Hawley MS, et al (2019). Older adults’ perspectives on us-ing digital technology to maintain good mental health: Interactive group study. J Med Internet Res, 21(2): e11694.
| Files | ||
| Issue | Vol 52 No 7 (2023) | |
| Section | Original Article(s) | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.18502/ijph.v52i7.13245 | |
| Keywords | ||
| Elderly Health information literacy Health behaviors Health information seeking Social support | ||
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. |
How to Cite
1.
Tang L, Wang J. Exploring the Relationship between Health Information Literacy and Health Behaviors of the Elderly. Iran J Public Health. 2023;52(7):1439-1446.
