Do Brief Educational Sessions Increase Electronic Health Literacy of Low-Income Persons Living With HIV/AIDS?

ABSTRACT

This research explored whether participating in a brief educational intervention using the National Library of Medicine video, Evaluating Health Information A Tutorial From the National Library of Medicine, would increase electronic health literacy. A quasi-experimental longitudinal design was used in two randomly selected settings of a treatment program for low-income persons living with HIV/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (N = 100). Individuals in both intervention groups watched the video and completed an at-home assignment brought to the second session 1 week later; one group received an additional 15 minutes with an HIV nurse clinician who reinforced video content. Generalized linear models were used in order to account for the longitudinal nature of the data; a full model was fitted first that included age, gender, race, ethnicity, education, acquired immune deficiency syndrome diagnosis, time, group, and the interaction of time by intervention group with electronic health literacy as the dependent variable. Group means were not significantly different, and the overall group pattern were the same; the only significant variable was older age, which is consistent with the findings of other literature. Electronic health literacy can be increased by viewing a free video; making this video available in a variety of settings and encouraging clients to use the Internet as a source of health information may improve self-management strategies of persons living with chronic illnesses.