Assessing the digital literacy levels of the community pharmacy workforce using a survey tool

To investigate the digital literacy of staff in London, UK, community pharmacies and to explore their perceptions about the use of eHealth tools. The study population was community pharmacy staff (N = 21,346) in Greater London. A survey tool was divided into six sections: Use of the internet; Use of...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	The International journal of pharmacy practice Vol. 31; no. 1; pp. 55 - 61
Main Authors:	Crilly, Philip, Fletcher, John, Chandegra, Nishma, Khalefa, Asem, Rouf, S K M, Zein, Mohamed, Kayyali, Reem
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	England 13-03-2023
Subjects:	Health Literacy Humans Pharmacies Retrospective Studies Self Report Surveys and Questionnaires Telemedicine Workforce mobile health apps digital literacy social media Community pharmacy digital capability eHealth
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Summary:	To investigate the digital literacy of staff in London, UK, community pharmacies and to explore their perceptions about the use of eHealth tools. The study population was community pharmacy staff (N = 21,346) in Greater London. A survey tool was divided into six sections: Use of the internet; Use of social media; Use of mobile health applications (MHAs); Perception of and practical use of digital health tools; Scenario-based questions and demographics. Responses were analysed in SPSS. Following data collection, Health Education England's (HEE's) Digital Capabilities Framework (DCF) was published. The authors mapped the survey tool retrospectively to the framework. Almost all respondents (98.0%, n = 551/562) used eHealth tools at work, mainly to access medicine information (89.8%, n = 495/551). Almost one-third (31.7%, N = 178/562) used social media regularly, while many (79.4%, N = 446/562) were aware of MHAs. Self-perceived digital literacy indicated that 63.3% (n = 356/562) deemed themselves to be above average. Under 35s rated their digital literacy more highly than over 35s (P < 0.001). HEE's DCF indicated that actual digital literacy was lower than that of self-perceived. Despite the high use of eHealth tools, respondents were reluctant to recommend these to the public for health advice. Community pharmacy staff self-report their digital literacy to be high yet do not use these skills for public health purposes. Furthermore, these self-reported skills appear to be over-estimated. Despite high levels of use of digital tools at work, staff do not use them for public health, therefore, further training to build confidence to better utilise them is recommended.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23
ISSN:	0961-7671 2042-7174
DOI:	10.1093/ijpp/riac091