The effect of e-health literacy level on the cyberchondria level of public employees: The case of Malatya province

Health literacy skills are needed in today's healthcare system to understand and use complex health information and to communicate effectively with providers who provide or produce healthcare. In this context, health literacy is thought to include knowledge about health issues as well as general literacy skills. Therefore, health literacy; It also includes a person's education level and general reading skills, as well as skills such as reading, listening, checking, decision-making, and applying these skills to health problems. As the importance of health has increased recently, the diversity of information available on the internet increases the value of health literacy. E-health literacy has been identified by people who research online the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of any health problem. As a negative result of searching for health information on the internet, the concept of "cyberchondria", one of the diseases of the new age, has come to the fore. When we examined the literature, we came across studies examining the relationship between digital literacy, e-Health literacy and cyberchondria from different perspectives. No study has been found examining the model discussed in this study. Assuming that public employees who constantly use digital technologies and the internet due to their profession may engage in more health information search behavior on the internet, this study examines the effect of the e-health literacy level on the cyberchondria level of public employees. The data to be used in the study was obtained by survey method on 401 people. The data obtained in this study were analyzed with the licensed SPSS 25 package program. For reliability, the internal consistency coefficient Cronbach's Alpha test statistic was used. While examining the differences between groups, t and ANOVA tests were used since the variables came from normal distribution. In case of differences in the ANOVA test, differences were calculated with the Tukey test, taking into account the assumption of homogeneity of variances. Pearson correlation tests and regression analysis were used when examining the relationship between continuous variables. According to the analysis results obtained in the study, it was seen that the e-health literacy levels of public employees had a significant effect on the severity levels of cyberchondria.