The Relationship Between E-Health Literacy with Post-Traumatic Stress Symptoms of Nurses During The Pandemic

Abstract

Objective: During the pandemic, health employees carry an emotional burden and specific psychological problems about caring for infected patients. This research was conducted to determine nurses' e-Health literacy levels and post-traumatic stress symptoms status in the COVID-19 pandemic and to examine the relationship between them.Methods: The study was planned in descriptive, and correlational types, consisting of 172 nurses working in two state hospitals in Turkey during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the study, the whole universe was tried to be reached. The sample selection method was not applied. The Nurse Identification Form, e-Health Literacy Scale (eHEALS), and the Impact of Events Scale-Revised (IES-R) were applied online using GOOGLE forms in the study. Due to a lack of answers, the study started online on June 8, 2020, and ended on September 16, 2020. The Mann-Whitney U test was applied in two-group comparisons, and the Kruskal-Wallis test was used to test differences among three groups. The Mann-Whitney U test was performed to test the significance of pairwise differences using Bonferroni correction to adjust for multiple comparisons. A p-value of <0.05 was considered statistically significant.Results: The median score of e-health literacy level was 32 for those with undergraduate and graduate education. The median eHEALS score of nurses who think that the internet is very useful in accessing health resources is 32,5. The scale score of the impact of events was found to be high in nurses working in the emergency services, experiencing changes in their social, occupational, or other areas during the epidemic, having different stress factors in the work environment excluding COVID-19. The nurses' e-Health literacy median score is 32, the impact of events scale median score is 30. There is no statistically significant relationship between nurses' e-Health literacy levels and post-traumatic stress symptoms.Conclusion: Although there is arelationship between e-Health literacy levels and nurses' post-traumatic stress symptoms status, the e-Health literacy status was higher than average, and the severity of post-traumatic stress symptoms was mild.