Digital health literacy and subjective wellbeing in the context of COVID-19_Ecuador
Description
The objective was to assess the digital health literacy stratified by sociodemographic characteristics and to analyze its association with subjective wellbeing in Ecuadorian university students in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. This study was carried out as part of the COVID-HL Consortium, a health literacy research network made up of 65 countries, with an emphasis on on different target groups (university students, school staff, COVID-survivors) and settings (university, school, health care) (https://covid-hl.eu) This database belongs to a study carried out in two universities in Quito, the capital of Ecuador. Undergraduate and graduate university students were invited to participate in an online survey. The study targeted all students enrolled in the June-December 2020 semester. The total number of students who completed the survey with valid responses was 917. The dependent variable studied was subjective well-being during the last two weeks, which was measured with the World Health Organization (WHO) Wellbeing Scale. The independent variable was Digital Health Literacy with respect to COVID-19 (DHLI). It was measured with the Spanish-translated version of the Digital Health Literacy Instrument (COVID-DHLI-Spanish) used by the Global COVID-HL Consortium, and based on the original version from van der Vaart and Drossaert. ), the following were considered as adjustment covariates: gender (male/female), age (less than or equal to 22 years / greater than or equal to 23 years), university (public/private), area of study of their major or degree, level of studies (undergraduate, master's degree, doctorate, etc.), presence of any chronic condition (yes/no). To assess the subjective social status, the MacArthur scale developed by Adler was applied, in which the illustration of a ladder is presented with ten steps. Respondents were asked to position themselves at the step that best reflected their status in the social hierarchy, with higher values indicating a higher social status.