DIGItal health literacy after COVID-19 outbreak among frail and non-frail cardiology patients: the DIGI-COVID study

FUNDING ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Type of funding sources: None. BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the role of telemedicine in reducing face-to-face visits. Telemedicine requires either the use of digital support methods and a minimum technological knowledge of the patients. Digital health literacy, defined as the use of digital literacy skills to find and use health information and services, may influence the use of telemedicine in most patients, particularly in specific groups such as those with frailty. AIM: To explore the association between frailty status, patients' use of digital tools and digital health literacy to determine whether it would be possible to implement control visits in patients followed in a cardiac arrhythmias outpatient clinic. METHODS: We prospectively enrolled consecutive patients referring to arrhythmias outpatient clinics of our department from March to September 2022. Patients were divided according to frailty status as defined by the Edmonton Frail Scale (EFS) into three subgroups: robust, pre-frail, and frail. The degree of health digital literacy was assessed through the Digital Health Literacy Instrument (DHLI) Scale. The DHLI explores 7 digital skill categories measured by 21 self-report questions. The self-report questions require participants to rate on a 4-point scale how difficult different tasks are and how frequently they encounter certain difficulties on the Internet. The total DHLI and each skill category score were calculated by summing the received scores in every single domain (3 questions per each skill category) and reported as mean and median. A multivariable logistic regression analysis was also use to evaluate the association between the non-use of the Internet and frailty status. RESULTS: A total of 300 patients were enrolled (36.3% females, median age 75 [66-84]) and stratified according to frailty status as: (i) Robust (EFS ≤ 5; n = 212, 70.7%), (ii) Pre-Frail (EFS 6-7; n = 47, 15.7%), and (iii) Frail (EFS ≥ 8; n = 41, 13.7%). Frail patients used less frequently smartphones, PC and emails and had less availability of Wi-Fi at home compared to robust patients (Table 1). At the multivariable logistic regression analysis, frailty was significantly associated with the non-use of the Internet (adjusted odds ratio, 2.58 95% confidence interval 1.92-5.61). Digital health literacy score decreased as the level of frailty increased in all the domains explored (operational skills, navigation skills, information searching, evaluating the reliability of the information, determining the relevance of online information, adding self-generated content and protecting privacy while using the internet, all p<0.001, Table 2). CONCLUSIONS: Frail patients are characterized by a lower use of digital tools and access to the Internet even though these patients would benefit the most from telemedicine. Digital skills are strongly influenced by frail status highlighting the need to implement digital health literacy with specific interventions in this population. [Figure: see text] [Figure: see text]