| Sumario: | Purpose Digital health literacy refers to the ability to seek, find, understand, and appraise health information or healthcare-related digital applications and apply the knowledge gained to addressing or solving a health problem (Norman & Skinner, 2006; van der Vaart & Drossaert, 2017). The COVID-19 pandemic led to the adoption of evolving digital technologies and various changes in our daily lives. Digital health, like the web, mobile, and wearable devices, affects health status and quality of life by improving access to health information for vulnerable groups. However, if digital health literacy is not considered, health inequity due to inadequate health information will bring about health inequity (Cheng, et. al., 2020; Dunn, & Hazzard., 2019). This study aims to understand the digital health literacy of older adults living alone and explore the relationship between demographic variables, internet use, and digital health literacy. Method A convenience sample of older adults aged 65 years or older who live alone participated in a cross-sectional survey. The survey questionnaire included the eHealth literacy scale (eHEALS), Digital Health Technology Literacy Assessment Questionnaire (DHTL-AQ), internet use and health-related variables. Since data were not normally distributed, we analyzed by nonparametric methods such as the Mann-Whitney, Kruskal-Wallis tests, spearman's rank correlation and generalized linear model. Results and Discussion A total of 191 participants were included in the study. The mean age of all participants was 77.12 years, and 145(75.9%) participants were females. Of the 140 (140/191, 73.30%) people who owned a smartphone, 62(62/140, 44.29%) of them had used the internet within a month. The generalized linear model results showed that participants with low digital health literacy levels were older and had a lower education level. They also rarely or never used the internet and had lower communication scores with HCPS. These differences were statistically significant. Therefore, when applying digital health to vulnerable groups such as the elderly living alone, it is necessary to assess their education level, internet use, and digital health literacy.
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