ArticleJournal of medical Internet research2021
Effects of Objective and Subjective Health Literacy on Patients' Accurate Judgment of Health Information and Decision-Making Ability: Survey Study.
Article in Journal of medical Internet research, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 45 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
45 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Examining the relationship between health literacy and eHealth literacy in adult populations: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Health promotion international · 2025Pooled it
- Health literacy and medication adherence in adults from ethnic minority backgrounds with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: a systematic review.BMC public health · 2025Pooled it
- A systematic review of the effectiveness of community-based interventions aimed at improving health literacy of parents/carers of children.Perspectives in public health · 2025Pooled it
- Consulting Dr. Google: Two experimental studies on seeking mental health information online.Internet interventions · 2026Article
- Potential role of regular physicians in improving health literacy in patients with chronic diseases: a retrospective cross-sectional study in Korea.Korean journal of family medicine · 2026Article
- Perceived communication quality of a standardized neuroradiology report following AI-based simplification: a randomized, blinded study.Insights into imaging · 2026Article
- Comparing TCIM use and patient satisfaction in germany: impact of health self-management across migration backgrounds.Journal of health, population, and nutrition · 2026Article
- The prostate cancer electronic health (eHealth) literacy instrument: a tool for eHealth design and patient communication.BJU international · 2026Article
- Understanding Informed Consent: A Cross-Sectional Study of Objective and Self-Perceived Comprehension in Romania.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Measuring eHealth Literacy in the European Economic Area, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom: Scoping Review.Journal of medical Internet research · 2026Article
- Maternal Misperception of Child Body Size and Its Association with Information-Seeking Opportunities and Information Sources in Japanese Preschool Children.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Examining the Factor Structure of Objective Health Literacy and Numeracy Scales: Large-Scale Cross-Sectional Study.JMIR public health and surveillance · 2026Article
- Joint latent profiles of death anxiety and treatment adherence in HCC patients.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Article
- Health misinformation, digital health literacy, and attitudes toward science among university students: an exploratory cross-sectional survey.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- [The internet as a source of health information: results of a household survey in Brazilian municipalities in the South and Central-West regions].Cadernos de saude publica · 2026Article
- Understanding health knowledge failures: uncertainty versus misinformation.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Assessing health literacy and diversity within the All of Us Research Program.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA · 2025Article
- Lifestyle Knowledge and Behavior Among Stroke and High-Risk Younger Adult Patients Through Sex, Age and Stroke Status Differences: A Cross-Sectional Study.American journal of lifestyle medicine · 2025Article
- Association between behavioral and sociodemographic factors and high subjective health among adolescents: a nationwide representative study in South Korea.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- The impact of health literacy on treatment adherence in COPD patients: chain mediation roles of self-efficacy and perceived disease threat.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundInterpreting health information and acquiring health knowledge have become more important with the accumulation of scientific medical knowledge and ideals of patient autonomy. Health literacy and its tremendous success as a concept can be considered an admission that not all is well in the distribution of health knowledge. The internet makes health information much more easily accessible than ever, but it introduces its own problems, of which health disinformation is a major one.
objectiveThe objective of this study was to determine whether objective and subjective health literacy are independent concepts and to test which of the two was associated more strongly with accurate judgments of the quality of a medical website and with behavioral intentions beneficial to health.
methodsA survey on depression and its treatments was conducted online (n=362). The Newest Vital Sign was employed to measure objective, performance-based health literacy, and the eHealth Literacy Scale was used to measure subjective, perception-based health literacy. Correlations, comparisons of means, linear and binary logistic regression, and mediation models were used to determine the associations.
resultsObjective and subjective health literacy were weakly associated with one another (r=0.06, P=.24). High objective health literacy levels were associated with an inclination to behave in ways that are beneficial to one's own or others' health (Exp[B]=2.068, P=.004) and an ability to recognize low-quality online sources of health information (β=-.4698, P=.005). The recognition also improved participants' choice of treatment (β=-.3345, P<.001). Objective health literacy helped people to recognize misinformation on health websites and improved their judgment on their treatment for depression.
conclusionsSelf-reported, perception-based health literacy should be treated as a separate concept from objective, performance-based health literacy. Only objective health literacy appears to have the potential to prevent people from becoming victims of health disinformation.
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