Digital health literacy and associated factors among community-dwelling older adults with multimorbidity: a cross-sectional study.
Digital health literacy was modest among older adults with multimorbidity.
Digital health literacy and associated factors among community-dwelling older adults with multimorbidity: a cross-sectional study.
Digital health technologies are increasingly embedded in chronic disease management, yet older adults with multimorbidity may have difficulty accessing, evaluating, and applying digital health information.
This study assessed digital health literacy (digital health literacy) and examined its sociodemographic, clinical, digital, and psychosocial correlates among community-dwelling older adults with multimorbidity.
This community-based cross-sectional study included a convenience sample of 345 adults aged 60 years or older with at least two physician-diagnosed chronic conditions who were recruited from three community hospitals in Hefei, China, between November 2025 and February 2026.
Median digital health literacy score; authors describe this level as modest overall.
In the fully adjusted model, older age was associated with lower digital health literacy, whereas higher educational attainment, monthly income above 2,000 CNY, and longer daily Internet use were associated with higher digital health literacy.
Considering digital health information only slightly useful (B = -6.753; 95% CI, -9.144 to -4.363) and reporting difficulty using digital health tools (B = -3.855; 95% CI, -6.545 to -1.165) were associated with lower digital health literacy.
Digital health literacy was modest and was associated with socioeconomic resources, digital exposure, technology perceptions, health activation, technophobia, and reciprocal social support.
Interventions should combine accessible digital-skills training with efforts to improve usability, reduce technology-related fear, strengthen self-management capacity, and provide trusted human support.
Because of the cross-sectional design and construct overlap, these findings should not be interpreted causally.