Therefore, the purpose of the study is to assess the Digital Health literacy for information seeking on musculoskeletal illnesses and exercise practices among urban youth athletes in Sri Lanka.
A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among 300 athletes aged between 15-24 years in Sri Lanka who were selected using convenience sampling. They were selected among the social contact groups of the main sports clubs and societies in Western Province of Sri Lanka. Data was selected using an online Questionnaire. This was based mainly on the eHealth literacy scale (EHEALS). The EHEALS scale consisted of 8 items and the data was measured using a five-point Likert scale (strongly disagree -1, strongly agree-5). Collected data was analyzed using Descriptive Statistics.
From the distributed questionnaires, 240 valid responses were received. Among them, the majority (54.2%, 130) were females. More than 50% (134) of them were between the ages 18-24 years. 45.8% (110) of them were playing at national or international level. 85% (204) admitted they had access to digital health and 89.2% (214) of them mentioned they use smartphones to access the internet. When we asked how often they used the internet to seek information on musculoskeletal illnesses and exercise practices, 54.2% (130) admitted that they do. We used the E health Literacy Scale (EHEALS) questionnaire to assess their e health literacy skills. Lowest score for any athlete was 8 and highest was 40.
Majority (171) were accessing the internet daily, but less than 2 hours. Most (188) accessed the internet using the mobile phone Mean EHEALS score (min 8; max 40) was 29.8 with a standard deviation of 3.164. The mean scores for individual scale items were most for knowing where to find helpful health resources (3.88 out of 5) and least for being able to discriminate between high- and low-quality resources (3.78). However, the highest mean EHEALS score (34.1) was for those who accessed the internet only using their computers.
The Digital Health literacy for information seeking on musculoskeletal illnesses and exercise practices among urban youth athletes in Sri Lanka was satisfactory. But the ability to use electronic resources reliably seems to be questionable.
Therefore, it is important to educate these athletes on how to source reliable information regarding avoiding, treating and treatment seeking on musculoskeletal illnesses and sports related exercise practices. This education could be done using their social media connectivity groups.
Sri Lankan Youth Athletes
Injury Prevention
