Competencia mediática en eSalud, bienestar psicológico y salud mental en estudiantes universitarios

Résumé

Introduction: The implementation of information technologies and communication (ICT) in the field of health has given rise to eHealth. The benefits of ICT in the field of health have been widely recognized. Even though today, university students have the resources needed to access an almost unlimited amount of health information, this access does not guarantee that they select the best information or to make good use of it. This does nothing more than highlight the need for training in eHealth, but to implement training programs are necessary tools to assess the skills of university students in eHealth. One of the most used scales to measure this competence is the eHealth Literacy Scale (eHEALS; Norman and Skinner, 2006a); however, there was no validation of this scale in Spanish. In this sense a number of questions arise that have not been addressed in the Spanish context: Do university students have skills needed to use the Internet health information? Could competences in eHealth influence the psychological well-being or mental health of university students? Objectives: The main objective of the study is to analyze competence in eHealth, psychological well-being and mental health in students of the University of Huelva. For this, a number of more specific objectives were raised including the following: to adapt and validate eHEALS to the Spanish context, to analyze the relationship among competition in eHealth, psychological well-being and mental health of university students and examine their differences in gender or degree. Method: This research consists of two studies. Firstly an instrumental study was conducted to adapt and to validate the scale eHEALS to a Spanish university context (with a sample of 447 university students). Then in the second study, this scale was used, evaluating eHealth competences together with other measures: life satisfaction, subjective vitality, self-esteem and psychological health. In this way, an ex post facto study with a sample of 1975 undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Huelva was performed. Results: With regard to Study 1, exploratory factor analysis showed monofactorial structure explained 52.55% of the explained variance, with high factor weights of its items. Reliability of 0.87 and a test-retest correlation of 0.78 were obtained. The confirmatory factor analysis showed appropriate fit indices. In addition, the questionnaire was invariant by gender. In study 2, the correlation analysis showed that eHealth competence is positively and significantly related to life satisfaction, subjective vitality and self-esteem, whereas it showed a negative relationship with psychological distress. Even though the correlation coefficient in all these relations had low values. In the analysis of the different variables according to gender, significant differences in life satisfaction, self-esteem and mental health were found. Male university students obtained an average score lower on psychological distress, showing a better psychological health than women. Regarding the level of eHealth competence depending on the type of degree, significant differences in favor of students studying degree courses related to health they were found. Finally, regression analysis showed that university students with adequate vitality, good self-esteem and who are generally satisfied with their lives will have a better psychological health. Conclusions: The Spanish version of eHEALS is a simple, valid and reliable tool for measuring eHealth aptitude in the university context. EHealth competence perceived for university student shows positive relationship with their welfare, while the relationship is negative in psychological distress. In addition, university students with adequate vitality, good self-esteem and who are generally satisfied with their lives will have a better psychological health. Regarding gender differences, it is noted that male university students have better psychological health than female students. Moreover, students from degree courses related to health have greater competence in eHealth than students from other degrees. Finally, in the section of practical implications, a series of measures to increase e-health competence, well-being and psychological health of university students are presented.