Profiles of health literacy and digital health literacy in clusters of hospitalised patients: a single-centre, cross-sectional study

Abstract

Objective To investigate health literacy (HL) and digital health literacy (eHL) among patients hospitalised in surgical and medical wards using a cluster analysis approach.Design Cross‐sectional study using Ward’s hierarchical clustering method to measure cluster adequacy by evaluating distances between cluster centroids (a measure of cohesion). Different distances produced different cluster solutions.Setting and participants The study was conducted at a Norwegian university hospital. A total of 260 hospitalised patients were enrolled between 24 May and 6 June 2021.Data collection All data were collected by self-reported questionnaires. Data on HL and eHL were collected by the Health Literacy Questionnaire (HLQ) and the eHealth Literacy Questionnaire (eHLQ). We also collected data on background characteristics, health status and patient diagnosis.Results We found six HLQ clusters to be the best solution of the sample, identifying substantial diversity in HL strengths and challenges. Two clusters, representing 21% of the total sample, reported the lowest HLQ scores in eight of nine HLQ domains. Compared with the other clusters, these two contained the highest number of women, as well as the patients with the highest mean age, a low level of education and the lowest proportion of being employed. One of these clusters also represented patients with the lowest health status score. We identified six eHL clusters, two of which represented 31% of the total sample with the lowest eHLQ scores in five of seven eHLQ domains, with background characteristics comparable to patients in the low-scoring HLQ clusters.Conclusions This study provides new, nuanced knowledge about HL and eHL profiles in different clusters of patients hospitalised in surgical and medical wards. With such data, healthcare professionals can take into account vulnerable patients’ HL needs and tailor information and communication accordingly.