The effect of HEALTH literacy level on e-health applications

The purpose of the study is to measure the effect of health literacy level on the level of use of e-health applications among public employees, excluding health workers serving directly to the public and working in public institutions in the downtown area of Yozgat. The study is cross-sectional and was conducted in 2021. Data were collected through Google forms. Socio-demographic characteristics, questions about the use of e-health applications, and the Turkish version of the European Health Literacy Scale (ASOY-TR-16) were used as data forms. 476 public personnel working in state institutions in the city center participated in the study. Chi-square test, t-test, ANOVA, and multinomial logistic regression were used to evaluate the data. Of the participants, 64.3% of them were male, 74.9% were married, 45.3% were in the 30-39 age group, and 60.9% were undergraduates. It was observed that 21.5% of the people in the research group had insufficient health literacy (SSL), 41.3% were problematic and 37.2% were sufficient. It was seen that the most used E-health application was E-pulse with 84.9%, followed by Life Fits Into Home (HES) and Central Physician Appointment System (MHRS) (64.3%), and the lowest was the hospitals' own online systems (29.1%). 14 people stated that they have never used the E-Pulse application, 35.3% of them use the 1-3 menu, 38.6% use the 4-6, and 26.1% 7-11 menu. The rate of those who do not use any of the health-related menus of the e-Government SGK application is 46.8%, the rate of those who use only one is 27.9%, and the rate of those who use 2 or more is 25.3%. The use of E-Nabız and E-Devlet SGK applications according to SOY level was not found to be statistically significant (p>0.05). The vast majority of public employees use E-nabız, approximately 2/3 of them use HES and MHRS. Less than half of the participants in the study had sufficient health-literacy level, and the effect on e-Health practices was not found significant.