Health-related Decisions Research Articles

Kidney health for all: bridging the gap in kidney health education and literacy†

The high burden of kidney disease, global disparities in kidney care, and poor outcomes of kidney failure bring a concomitant growing burden to persons affected, their families, and carers, and the community at large. Health literacy is the degree to which persons and organizations have or equitably enable individuals to have the ability to find, understand, and use information and services to make informed health-related decisions and actions for themselves and others. Rather than viewing health literacy as a patient deficit, improving health literacy largely rests with health care providers communicating and educating effectively in codesigned partnership with those with kidney disease. For kidney policy makers, health literacy provides the imperative to shift organizations to a culture that places the person at the center of health care. The growing capability of and access to technology provides new opportunities to enhance education and awareness of kidney disease for all stakeholders. Advances in telecommunication, including social media platforms, can be leveraged to enhance persons' and providers' education; The World Kidney Day declares 2022 as the year of "Kidney Health for All" to promote global teamwork in advancing strategies in bridging the gap in kidney health education and literacy. Kidney organizations should work toward shifting the patient-deficit health literacy narrative to that of being the responsibility of health care providers and health policy makers. By engaging in and supporting kidney health-centered policy making, community health planning, and health literacy approaches for all, the kidney communities strive to prevent kidney diseases and enable living well with kidney disease. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Kidney health for all: bridging the gap in kidney health education and literacy.

The high burden of kidney disease, global disparities in kidney care, and poor outcomes of kidney failure bring a concomitant growing burden to persons affected, their families, and carers, and the community at large. Health literacy is the degree to which persons and organizations have or equitably enable individuals to have the ability to find, understand, and use information and services to make informed health-related decisions and actions for themselves and others. Rather than viewing health literacy as a patient deficit, improving health literacy largely rests with health care providers communicating and educating effectively in codesigned partnership with those with kidney disease. For kidney policy makers, health literacy provides the imperative to shift organizations to a culture that places the person at the center of health care. The growing capability of and access to technology provides new opportunities to enhance education and awareness of kidney disease for all stakeholders. Advances in telecommunication, including social media platforms, can be leveraged to enhance persons' and providers' education; The World Kidney Day declares 2022 as the year of "Kidney Health for All" to promote global teamwork in advancing strategies in bridging the gap in kidney health education and literacy. Kidney organizations should work toward shifting the patient-deficit health literacy narrative to that of being the responsibility of health care providers and health policy makers. By engaging in and supporting kidney health-centered policy making, community health planning, and health literacy approaches for all, the kidney communities strive to prevent kidney diseases and enable living well with kidney disease.

Validation and measurement invariance of the Arabic Health Literacy Questionnaire

Health literacy plays a key role in empowering individuals and enabling them to make health-related decisions. Despite the advances in health literacy research, there are gaps in the literature that require further inquiry, and establishing comprehensive and valid measurements is one of them. Thus, this research was conducted to examine the psychometric properties of the Arabic Health Literacy Questionnaire (HLQ), including the reliability, validity, and measurement invariances of the nine HLQ scales. A cross-sectional design was used in this study. A sample of university students (N = 1011) was recruited, the mean of age was 21.1 years old (SD = 2.28). The Arabic HLQ and a demographics questionnaire were completed by the participants. Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) and measurement invariances were performed for each HLQ scale. The values of Cronbach's α and composite reliability were above .70 for all HLQ scales. The CFA analyses showed that all HLQ scales meet the criteria that were set a priori: RMSEA ≤.07, CFI ≥.95, and Chisq/df < 5. In addition, all standardized factor loadings were above .50. Regarding the measurement invariance, the results supported the equal form measurement invariance for all HLQ scales. The equality of factor loadings measurement invariance across gender was also supported for all HLQ scales. Measurement invariance of factor loadings and equality of indicator intercepts was partially supported. These results show that the internal consistency, convergence, and factor structure of the HLQ are all supported. The Arabic HLQ is a reliable, valid tool to measure health literacy among Arabic-speaking populations.

SOCIAL EQUITY, DECISION-MAKING AND FAMILY PLANNING HURDLES AND ROLE OF ADMINISTRATION

Social equity and family planning are core issues for Human development and health wellbeing of a country. This paper discusses the social equity issue regarding family planning and health-related decision-making among males and females in Pakistan. This study graphically demonstrates Pakistan Demographic Health Surveys of 2012-13 and 2017-18 aggregated analysis covered the time horizon 2007-2018 in family planning decision-making and Pakistan's birth control issues and discussed the descriptive data. Also, the Government of Pakistan's (GOP) policy initiates from 2007 to date have been discussed. By referencing this sociological inquiry, evidence shows that males' awareness, education, and decision-making for family planning have a higher impact on the Fertility rate than females' decision-making in Pakistan, which creates social equity gap. Moreover, this study recommend that male awareness and thinking be optimized and changed positively by involving practitioners, religious scholars, and education and awareness campaigns

A qualitative study of knowledge, attitudes and perceptions towards malaria prevention among people living in rural upper river valleys of Nepal.

Nepal has made significant progress in decreasing the number of malaria cases over the last two decades. Prevention and timely management of malaria are critical for the National Malaria Program in its quest for elimination. The study aimed to explore the knowledge, attitudes and behaviour towards malaria prevention and treatment among people living in rural villages of Khatyad Rural Municipality in Nepal. This qualitative study collected information through virtual in-depth interviews (N = 25) with female and male participants aged between 15 and 72 years. More than half of the participants knew about the causes of malaria, were aware of the complications of untreated malaria and knew that anti-malarial medicines were provided for free at the public health facilities. Participants indicated that their first choice of health care were public health facilities, however limited supply of medications and diagnostics deviated patients to the private sector. While tertiary care costs were not financially viable, participants opted against traditional care for malaria. Factors such as cost of treatment, distance to the health facility and the decision making authority in households influenced health related decisions in the family. Although long-lasting insecticidal nets were distributed and indoor residual spraying was done periodically, several barriers were identified. Increased awareness of malaria prevention and treatment among people living in malaria risk areas is important for the National Malaria Program in its quest for malaria elimination in Nepal.

Reducing impulsive choice: VIII. Effects of delay-exposure training in female rats

Impulsive choice may play an important role in serious health-related decisions, like addiction tendencies. Thus, there is merit in exploring interventions that reduce impulsive choice. Delay-exposure training involves extended experience with delayed reinforcement. Following training, delay-exposed rats make fewer impulsive choices than control rats. The reducing effects of delay exposure training on impulsive choice have been replicated in male rats seven times. For the first time, this study evaluated the effects of delay exposure training in female rats. Thirty-six rats were randomly assigned to either delay-exposure or immediacy-exposure training. Then, rats underwent two impulsive choice assessments in which they chose between one immediate pellet or three delayed pellets. In the first assessment, delays increased within-sessions, across trial blocks from 0, 8, 16, to 32 s. In the second assessment, delays to the larger reward increased between-sessions, from 8, 16, 32, to 4 s. Unlike findings with male rats, delay-exposure training produced a reduction in impulsive choice only in the initial five sessions in female rats. Possible reasons for the lack of lasting effect in female rats are discussed and future research directions are identified.

Kidney health for all: bridging the gap in kidney health education and literacy

The high burden of kidney disease, global disparities in kidney care, and poor outcomes of kidney failure bring a concomitant growing burden to persons affected, their families, and carers, and the community at large. Health literacy is the degree to which persons and organizations have or equitably enable individuals to have the ability to find, understand, and use information and services to make informed health-related decisions and actions for themselves and others. Rather than viewing health literacy as a patient deficit, improving health literacy largely rests with health care providers communicating and educating effectively in codesigned partnership with those with kidney disease. For kidney policy makers, health literacy provides the imperative to shift organizations to a culture that places the person at the center of health care. The growing capability of and access to technology provides new opportunities to enhance education and awareness of kidney disease for all stakeholders. Advances in telecommunication, including social media platforms, can be leveraged to enhance persons’ and providers’ education; The World Kidney Day declares 2022 as the year of “Kidney Health for All” to promote global teamwork in advancing strategies in bridging the gap in kidney health education and literacy. Kidney organizations should work toward shifting the patient-deficit health literacy narrative to that of being the responsibility of health care providers and health policy makers. By engaging in and supporting kidney health–centered policy making, community health planning, and health literacy approaches for all, the kidney communities strive to prevent kidney diseases and enable living well with kidney disease.

Detecting the patient\u2019s need for help with machine learning based on expressions

BackgroundDeveloping machine learning models to support health analytics requires increased understanding about statistical properties of self-rated expression statements used in health-related communication and decision making. To address this, our current research analyzes self-rated expression statements concerning the coronavirus COVID-19 epidemic and with a new methodology identifies how statistically significant differences between groups of respondents can be linked to machine learning results.MethodsA quantitative cross-sectional study gathering the “need for help” ratings for twenty health-related expression statements concerning the coronavirus epidemic on an 11-point Likert scale, and nine answers about the person’s health and wellbeing, sex and age. The study involved online respondents between 30 May and 3 August 2020 recruited from Finnish patient and disabled people’s organizations, other health-related organizations and professionals, and educational institutions (n = 673). We propose and experimentally motivate a new methodology of influence analysis concerning machine learning to be applied for evaluating how machine learning results depend on and are influenced by various properties of the data which are identified with traditional statistical methods.ResultsWe found statistically significant Kendall rank-correlations and high cosine similarity values between various health-related expression statement pairs concerning the “need for help” ratings and a background question pair. With tests of Wilcoxon rank-sum, Kruskal-Wallis and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) between groups we identified statistically significant rating differences for several health-related expression statements in respect to groupings based on the answer values of background questions, such as the ratings of suspecting to have the coronavirus infection and having it depending on the estimated health condition, quality of life and sex. Our new methodology enabled us to identify how statistically significant rating differences were linked to machine learning results thus helping to develop better human-understandable machine learning models.ConclusionsThe self-rated “need for help” concerning health-related expression statements differs statistically significantly depending on the person’s background information, such as his/her estimated health condition, quality of life and sex. With our new methodology statistically significant rating differences can be linked to machine learning results thus enabling to develop better machine learning to identify, interpret and address the patient’s needs for well-personalized care.

What Does the General Public Know (or Not) About Neuroscience? Effects of Age, Region and Profession in Brazil.

The field of Neuroscience has experienced a growing interest in recent decades, which has led to an exponential growth in the amount of related information made available online as well as the market for Neuroscience-related courses. While this type of knowledge can be greatly beneficial to people working in science, health and education, it can also benefit individuals in other areas. For example, neuroscience knowledge can help people from all fields better understand and critique information about new discoveries or products, and even make better education- and health-related decisions. Online platforms are fertile ground for the creation and spread of fake information, including misrepresentations of scientific knowledge or new discoveries (e.g., neuromyths). These types of false information, once spread, can be difficult to tear down and may have widespread negative effects. For example, even scientists are less likely to access retractions of peer-reviewed articles than the original discredited articles. In this study we surveyed general knowledge about neuroscience and the brain among volunteers in Brazil, Latin America’s largest country. We were interested in evaluating the prevalence of neuromyths in this region, and test whether knowledge/neuromyth endorsement differs by age, region, and/or profession. To that end, we created a 30-item survey that was anonymously answered online by 1128 individuals. While younger people (20–29-year-olds) generally responded more accurately than people 60 and older, people in the North responded significantly worse than those in the South and Southeast. Most interestingly, people in the biological sciences consistently responded best, but people in the health sciences responded no better than people in the exact sciences or humanities. Furthermore, years of schooling did not correlate with performance, suggesting that quantity may surpass quality when it comes to extension or graduate-level course offerings. We discuss how our findings can help guide efforts toward improving access to quality information and training in the region.

Kidney health for all: Bridging the gap in kidney health education and literacy

The high burden of kidney disease, global disparities in kidney care, and poor outcomes of kidney failure bring a concomitant growing burden to persons affected, their families, and carers, and the community at large. Health literacy is the degree to which persons and organizations have or equitably enable individuals to have the ability to find, understand, and use information and services to make informed health-related decisions and actions for themselves and others. Rather than viewing health literacy as a patient deficit, improving health literacy largely rests with health care providers communicating and educating effectively in codesigned partnership with those with kidney disease. For kidney policy makers, health literacy provides the imperative to shift organizations to a culture that places the person at the center of health care. The growing capability of and access to technology provides new opportunities to enhance education and awareness of kidney disease for all stakeholders. Advances in telecommunication, including social media platforms, can be leveraged to enhance persons’ and providers’ education; The World Kidney Day declares 2022 as the year of “Kidney Health for All” to promote global teamwork in advancing strategies in bridging the gap in kidney health education and literacy. Kidney organizations should work toward shifting the patient-deficit health literacy narrative to that of being the responsibility of health care providers and health policy makers. By engaging in and supporting kidney health-centered policy making, community health planning, and health literacy approaches for all, the kidney communities strive to prevent kidney diseases and enable living well with kidney disease.

Abstract P145: Health Literacy And Self-care Practices Among Rural Appalachian Adults

Introduction: The prevalence of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and type 2 diabetes (T2DM) in Appalachian communities is among the highest in the nation. Health literacy, one’s ability to understand and use information to make health-related decisions, influences self-care practices which, in turn, shape chronic disease prevalence and outcomes. Hypothesis: Higher levels of health literacy are associated with optimal self-care practices among rural Appalachian adults with T2DM. Methods: Adults (N=356) diagnosed with T2DM were recruited from community sites across six rural Appalachian counties in Kentucky. Health literacy was measured using the New Vital Sign (NVS), with scores ranging 0-6. T2DM self-care was assessed using the Summary of Diabetes Self-Care Activities (SDSCA), with scores ranging 0-35. Linear mixed-effects models with random effects to account for clustering at the community level and household within site were fit to examine the association between level of health literacy and self-care practices. Results: The majority of the sample identified as female (65%), with a mean age of 64.2 years (SD: 10.6). The mean and median health literacy scores were 4.0 (SD: 2.0) and 5, respectively, indicating moderate health literacy. T2DM self-care scores ranged from 4-33 (Median= 17, Mean=17.1, SD: 6.3), indicating room for improvement concerning frequency of self-care practices. Specifically, average rates of self-care practices per week included following a generally healthy diet 3 days (SD: 2), exercising for 30 minutes 2 days (SD: 2), measuring blood sugar level 4 days (SD: 3), and practicing foot care 5 days (SD: 1). Health literacy was not associated with self-care practices when controlling for age, sex and financial status. Conclusions: Contrary to our hypothesis, results do not suggest a direct association between health literacy and T2DM self-care practices among Appalachian adults. Future studies should explore other personal or socio-cultural factors that may influence T2DM self-care among vulnerable populations experiencing numerous risk factors of cardiometabolic disease.

Kidney Health for all: Bridging the Gap in Kidney Health Education and Literacy

The high burden of kidney disease, global disparities in kidney care, and poor outcomes of kidney failure bring a concomitant growing burden to persons affected, their families, and carers, and the community at large. Health literacy is the degree to which persons and organizations have or equitably enable individuals to have the ability to find, understand, and use information and services to make informed health-related decisions and actions for themselves and others. Rather than viewing health literacy as a patient deficit, improving health literacy largely rests with health care providers communicating and educating effectively in codesigned partnership with those with kidney disease. For kidney policy makers, health literacy provides the imperative to shift organizations to a culture that places the person at the center of health care. The growing capability of and access to technology provides new opportunities to enhance education and awareness of kidney disease for all stakeholders. Advances in telecommunication, including social media platforms, can be leveraged to enhance persons’ and providers’ education; The World Kidney Day declares 2022 as the year of “Kidney Health for All” to promote global teamwork in advancing strategies in bridging the gap in kidney health education and literacy. Kidney organizations should work toward shifting the patient-deficit health literacy narrative to that of being the responsibility of health careproviders and health policy makers. By engaging in and supporting kidney health–centered policy making, community health planning, and health literacy approaches for all, the kidney communities strive to prevent kidney diseases and enable living well with kidney disease.

When the messenger affects the message: Trustworthiness in the context of COVID vaccination.

When the messenger affects the message: Trustworthiness in the context of COVID vaccination.

Kidney health for all: Bridging the gap in kidney health education and literacy

The high burden of kidney disease, global disparities in kidney care, and poor outcomes of kidney failure bring a concomitant growing burden to persons affected, their families, and carers, and the community at large. Health literacy is the degree to which persons and organizations have or equitably enable individuals to have the ability to find, understand, and use information and services to make informed health-related decisions and actions for themselves and others. Rather than viewing health literacy as a patient deficit, improving health literacy largely rests with health care providers communicating and educating effectively in codesigned partnership with those with kidney disease. For kidney policy makers, health literacy provides the imperative to shift organizations to a culture that places the person at the center of health care. The growing capability of and access to technology provides new opportunities to enhance education and awareness of kidney disease for all stakeholders. Advances in telecommunication, including social media platforms, can be leveraged to enhance persons’ and providers’ education; The World Kidney Day declares 2022 as the year of “Kidney Health for All” to promote global teamwork in advancing strategies in bridging the gap in kidney health education and literacy. Kidney organizations should work toward shifting the patient-deficit health literacy narrative to that of being the responsibility of health care providers and health policy makers. By engaging in and supporting kidney health-centered policy making, community health planning, and health literacy approaches for all, the kidney communities strive to prevent kidney diseases and enable living well with kidney disease.

Abstract WP225: Composition Of Egocentric Networks Among Stroke Survivors

Background: Social networks provide emotional and social support that may help prevent the onset of secondary stroke. Little is known about egocentric networks among stroke survivors and the type of support they provide. Objective: To develop an understanding of the supportive role alters or personal contacts provide to stroke survivors and gain insight of participants' egocentric network. Methods: Data obtained from the Discharge Educational Strategies for Reduction of Vascular Events (DESERVE) trial, a skills-based, culturally tailored discharge educational intervention. Participants (n=552) identified up to 5 alters. Descriptive analyses were conducted to assess the relationship between participants and alters. Results: Approximately, 34% of participants identified as Non-Hispanic (NH) Black followed by Hispanic (33%), NH White (28%), NH Asian Pacific Islanders (API) (3%). Majority of participants (n=462, 83%) reported having at least one alter. Most participants with ≥1 alter (92%) indicated talking to alter every day or several times a week. Yet all with an alter stated that they can talk to alter about an important health problem or medical decision. Among participants (n=543, p=.002), NH Blacks (n=38, 45%) and Hispanic (n=33, 39%) were more likely to report no alters compared to NH White (n=14, 16%; Figure). Conclusions: Majority of participants reported having at least one person within their social network that they can talk to about their health problems. We are unable to determine if the first person that participants indicated may be the most influential person in health-related matters. The implications of these results may be relevant for future stroke interventions. Additional studies are needed to understand the type of influence alters have on stroke survivors in health-related behaviors and decisions that may help improve post-stroke outcomes. Further studies are also needed to assess health outcomes among isolated stroke patients by race.

Kidney health for all: bridging the gap in kidney health education and literacy

The high burden of kidney disease, global disparities in kidney care, and poor outcomes of kidney failure bring a concomitant growing burden to persons affected, their families, and carers, and the community at large. Health literacy is the degree to which persons and organizations have or equitably enable individuals to have the ability to find, understand, and use information and services to make informed health-related decisions and actions for themselves and others. Rather than viewing health literacy as a patient deficit, improving health literacy largely rests with health care providers communicating and educating effectively in codesigned partnership with those with kidney disease. For kidney policy makers, health literacy provides the imperative to shift organizations to a culture that places the person at the center of health care. The growing capability of and access to technology provides new opportunities to enhance education and awareness of kidney disease for all stakeholders. Advances in telecommunication, including social media platforms, can be leveraged to enhance persons' and providers' education; The World Kidney Day declares 2022 as the year of "Kidney Health for All" to promote global teamwork in advancing strategies in bridging the gap in kidney health education and literacy. Kidney organizations should work toward shifting the patient-deficit health literacy narrative to that of being the responsibility of health care providers and health policy makers. By engaging in and supporting kidney health-centered policy making, community health planning, and health literacy approaches for all, the kidney communities strive to prevent kidney diseases and enable living well with kidney disease.

Using Intersectionality to Identify Gendered Barriers to Health-Seeking for Febrile Illness in Agro-Pastoralist Settings in Tanzania.

BackgroundResearch has shown that gender is a significant determinant of health-seeking behavior around the world. Gender power relations and lay etiologies of illness can influence the distribution of household resources, including for healthcare. In some rural settings in Africa, gender intersects with multiple forms of health inequities, from proximal socio-cultural factors to more “upstream” or distal health system determinants which can amplify barriers to health-seeking for specific groups in specific contexts.AimWe used an intersectionality approach to determine how women in particular, experience gendered barriers to accessing healthcare among Maa and non-Maa speaking agro-pastoralists in northern Tanzania. We also explored lay etiologies of febrile illness, perceptions of health providers and rural health-seeking behavior in order to identify the most common barriers to accessing healthcare in these settings.MethodsMixed method ethnographic approaches were used to collect data between 2016 and 2018 from four Maa-speaking and two Swahili-speaking agro-pastoralist villages in northern Tanzania. Maa-speaking villages were based in Naiti, Monduli district while non-Maa speaking villages were selected from Msitu in Babati district. Data on health seeking behaviors was collected through semi-structured questionnaires, in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, and home and facility-based participant observation.FindingsThe results primarily focus on the qualitative outcomes of both studies. We found that febrile illness was locally categorized across a spectrum of severity ranging from normal and expected illness to serious illness that required hospital treatment. Remedial actions taken to treat febrile illness included attending local health facilities, obtaining medicines from drug sellers and use of herbal remedies. We found barriers to health-seeking played out at different scales, from the health system, community (inter-household decision making) and household (intra-household decision making). Gender-based barriers at the household had a profound effect on health-seeking. Younger married women delayed seeking healthcare the most, as they often had to negotiate health-seeking with husbands and extended family members, including co-wives and mothers-in-law who make the majority of health-related decisions.ConclusionAn intersectional approach enabled us to gain a nuanced understanding of determinants of health-seeking behavior beyond the commonly assumed barriers such lack of public health infrastructure. We propose tapping into the potential of senior older women involved in local therapy-management groups, to explore gender-transformative approaches to health-seeking, including tackling gender-based barriers at the community level. While these social factors are important, ultimately, improving the public health infrastructure in these settings is a first step toward addressing structural determinants of treatment-seeking.

Engagement Analysis of Canadian Public Health and News Media Facebook Posts and Sentiment Analysis of Corresponding Comments during COVID-19

During the COVID-19 pandemic, key stakeholders have used social media to rapidly disseminate essential information to the public to help them make informed health-related decisions. Our research examined how the public responded to official actors’ Facebook posts during COVID-19 and examined the comment sentiment and post engagement rates. CBC News and CTV News received a greater proportion of negative comments and a lower average post engagement rate compared with Healthy Canadians. Additionally, the proportion of negative and positive comments varied over time for all sources; however, over 30% of the comments for all three actors were consistently negative. Key stakeholders should monitor the public’s response to their social media posts and adapt their messages to increase the effectiveness of their crisis communication efforts to encourage the adoption of protective measures.

POSB373 Translation and Cross-Cultural Adaptation of the Decisional Conflict Scale for Its Use in Migraine Patients in Spain

With an increasing number of available options for the treatment of migraine, a patient-individualized approach is required. There is a need to understand the effect of shared decision-making (SDM) as part of a successful therapeutic relationship clinician-patient. The Decisional Conflict Scale (DCS) measures the patients' state of uncertainty during health-related decision-making. We aimed to translate and adapt the DCS into Spanish from Spain for its use with migraine patients.

EHealth literacy of patients attending a primary care clinic in Malaysia and its associated factors: A cross-sectional study.

People are overloaded with online health information (OHI) of variable quality. eHealth literacy is important for people to acquire and appraise reliable information to make health-related decisions. While eHealth literacy is widely studied in developed countries, few studies have been conducted among patients in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). We aimed to determine the level of eHealth literacy in patients attending a primary care clinic in Malaysia and its associated factors. A cross-sectional study using a self-administered questionnaire was conducted in an urban primary care clinic. We used a systematic random sampling method to select patients aged 18 years and above who attended the clinic. The eHealth literacy scale (eHEALS) was used to measure eHealth literacy. A total of 381 participants were included. The mean eHEALS was 24.4 ± 7.6. The eHEALS statements related to skills in appraising OHI were scored lower than statements related to looking for online resources. Higher education level of attending upper secondary school (AOR 2.53, 95% CI 1.05-6.11), tertiary education (AOR 4.05, 95% CI 1.60-10.25), higher monthly household income of >US$470 (AOR 1.95, 95% CI 1.07-3.56), and those who had sought OHI in the past month (AOR 1.95, 95% CI 1.13-3.36) were associated with a higher eHealth literacy level. This study found a low eHealth literacy level among primary care patients in Malaysia. While the patients were confident in searching for OHI, they lacked skills in appraising them. Our findings inform the interventions for improving eHealth literacy in LMICs, especially educating the public about OHI appraisal.