The association between electronic health information usage and patient-centered communication: a cross sectional analysis from the Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS)

• Published in: BMC health services research Vol. 23; no. 1; p. 1398
• Main Authors: Knowles, Heidi, Swoboda, Thomas K, Sandlin, Devin, Huggins, Charles, Takami, Trevor, Johnson, Garrett, Wang, Hao
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England BioMed Central Ltd 12-12-2023; BioMed Central; BMC
• Subjects: Cancer; Clinical outcomes; Communication; Communication in medicine; Digital technology; E-health; Forecasts and trends; Health care; Health communication; Internet; Online health care information services; Patient satisfaction; Patient-centered; Patient-centered care; Perceptions; Personal health; Personal health record; Support groups; Technology application; Telemedicine; Trends; Web portals; United States; Internet; Patient-centered; Health communication; Personal health record
• ISSN: 1472-6963; 1472-6963
• DOI: 10.1186/s12913-023-10426-6

Patient-provider communication can be assessed by the patient-centered communication (PCC) score. With rapid development of electronic health (eHealth) information usage, we are uncertain of their role in PCC. Our study aims to determine the association between PCC and eHealth usage with the analysis of national representative survey data.
This is a cross sectional analysis using the Health Information National Trends Survey 5 (HINTS 5) cycle 1 to cycle 4 data (2017-2020). Seven specific questions were used for PCC assessment, and eHealth usage was divided into two types (private-eHealth and public-eHealth usage). A multivariate logistic regression was performed to determine the association between PCC and eHealth usage after the adjustment of other social, demographic, and clinical variables.
Our study analyzed a total of 13,055 unweighted participants representing a weighted population of 791,877,728. Approximately 43% of individuals used private eHealth and 19% used public eHealth. The adjusted odds ratio (AOR) of private-eHealth usage associated with positive PCC was 1.17 (95% CI 1.02-1.35, p = 0.027). The AOR of public-eHealth usage associated with positive PCC was 0.84 (95% CI 0.71-0.99, p = 0.043).
Our study found that eHealth usage association with PCC varies. Private-eHealth usage was positively associated with PCC, whereas public-eHealth usage was negatively associated with PCC.