Digital health literacy among the Spanish population

This repository contains the anonymized survey dataset used in the article “Digital health literacy among the Spanish population: a descriptive and latent class analysis study” (European Journal of Public Health, 2025), https://doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/ckaf016
The study provides a comprehensive picture of Digital Health Literacy (DHL) in Spain and identifies distinct population profiles using latent profile/class analysis, to inform healthcare organizations and policies aimed at improving people’s relationship with the digital health system.
Study design, setting, and participants: This was a cross-sectional study conducted in Spain with a stratified sample by geographical area, gender, and age. Inclusion criteria were being ≥18 years and having sufficient Spanish language competence to answer the survey. Recruitment and data collection took place between May 2021 and May 2022.
Participants (N = 400) were recruited through an independent market research company (ODEC) using an online panel (300 completed responses), plus an additional 100 participants recruited through community settings (health and social services) to strengthen representativeness among older adults and individuals with low educational level or low digital skills.
Data collection: Participants completed a 15-minute digitalized survey, either self-administered or assisted by trained recruiters, monitored by the authors.
The dataset includes:
Sociodemographics: gender, age, geographical area, and community size (population range).Socioeconomic status index: derived from questions on employment, housing, financial support, income, and education.Technology use frequency and self-reported health status (single-item questions).Digital health literacy (main measure): the Spanish eHealth Literacy Questionnaire (eHLQ) (35 items) covering 7 dimensions of the eHealth Literacy Framework; it does not produce a single overall score, but yields dimension scores that describe strengths/needs across domains.eHealth Literacy Scale (eHEALS), Spanish version: used to capture self-perceived ability to manage health information on the internet.Statistical analysis
Descriptive statistics (frequencies/percentages; mean/median/SD/min–max).Latent profile analysis to identify profiles based on the seven eHLQ dimension scores, comparing solutions using AIC, BIC, and the Lo–Mendell–Rubin adjusted likelihood ratio test (LMRT); entropy was used to assess classification accuracy, and full information maximum likelihood handled missing data.Associations between profiles and participant characteristics using Chi-square or ANOVA.Ethical and legal considerations: The study adhered to the Declaration of Helsinki, protected participant anonymity and confidentiality, and received ethics approval from the Ethics Committee of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (20201013_ehernandez_Traduccio).