JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

In the era of digital health, patients can select from a myriad of offerings that serve different support functions, such as providing them access to information, checking or evaluating an individual’s state of health, as well as tracking, monitoring, or sharing personal health data with others. Many of these offerings are associated with a potential to reduce information and communication inequalities, but first studies suggest that existing health inequalities may persist in the digital realm.

Objective:

The first objective of our study is to explore the use of digital health offerings. We, therefore, describe for a wide range of purposes how frequently they are used and categorize these functions data-based from the users’ perspective. Second, we aim to identify the prerequisites for the successful implementation and utilization of digital health offerings. We, therefore, shed light on predisposing, enabling, and need factors that may predict the use of digital health offerings for different types of functions.

Methods:

Data from the second wave of the German adaption of the Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS) serve to describe how frequently digital health offerings are used for various purposes, to identify their underlying functions using a principal component analysis, and to explain which factors may influence the use of these functions via binary logistic regression analyses.

Results:

Our results revealed that digital health offerings were most commonly used to acquire information whereas they were less frequently used for more active or interactive purposes such as tracking and sharing health information with health professionals. Across all purposes, two functions were identified: The first component was information-related empowerment, and the second component was healthcare-related organization and communication. Both functions were more likely to be used by respondents that are female, of younger age, have a high SES, or have a chronic disease. Thus, the use was determined by predisposing, but also by certain enabling and need factors.

Conclusions:

The results indicate that while digital health offerings have become part of the everyday lives of a large share of the German population, existing health-related disparities seem to prevail in the digital realm. Fostering digital health literacy on different levels will thus be key in making use of the potential of digital health offerings.