Development and validation of digital health literacy competencies for citizens (DHLC), an instrument for measuring digital health literacy in the community

Abstract

COVID-19 is a new disease in human life and has become pandemic. Pandemic Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) has been speeding up digital transformation in every sector. Implementation of digital technology in health should be supported by the community's readiness, such as digital health literacy to achieve the goals, optimize health service performance, and blockage infodemics and miss information. Implementation of digital technology in health should be supported by the community's readiness, such as digital health literacy to achieve the goals, optimize health service performance, and blockage infodemics and miss information. This study aims to develop a tool to measure digital health literacy in the community through three stages such as expert review, pre-test and field test. DHLC adopted the five competencies areas into 18 questions and put eight questions related to health literacy; the total items question of DHLC are 26 items questions. This study reveals that all of the score digital competencies areas below 4. Score 4 in DHLC indicates that the community still need guidance to doing activity in the digital environment. Elevating digital health literacy in the citizens is urgent to control the spreading misinformation and disinformation that could worsen pandemics. Future studies need to conduct to test the validity and reliability of DHLC in various settings.