Empowering Women through a Path Analysis: Identification of Effective Factors based on Social Support and Community Participation on e-Health Literacy in Women’s Virtual Health Society

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Midwifery Study Program, Sekolah Tinggi Ilmu Kesehatan Tri Mandiri Sakti Bengkulu, Bengkulu, Indonesia

2 Department of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, Universitas Sebelas Maret, Surakarta, Indonesia

3 Department of Health Behavior, Environment and Social Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Public Health and Nursing, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, Indonesia

4 Centre for Bioethics and Medical Humanities, Faculty of Medicine, Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

Abstract

Background and Objective: The virtual community plays a crucial role in increasing health literacy. A successful and empowered woman demands an adequate level of health literacy. Knowing the determinants affecting e-health literacy in the virtual community was hoped to optimize efforts to increase e-health literacy. This research is aimed to assess the determinants that affect e-health literacy in virtual communities for empowering women. 

Materials and Methods: A study with a cross-sectional approach was used to assess the determinants of e-health literacy. A total of 117 samples were taken using the total sampling technique. Data was collected using demographic variables checklist, social support, community participation, e-health literacy, and information process paradigms questionnaire. Data was analyzed for path analysis using Stata 13 software.

Results: The path analysis showed that social support and community participation in women had a significant positive direct effect (p<0.05) on health literacy. The community participation, information processing paradigm, ethnicity, number of social media owned, age, education, distance from home to healthcare facilities, and number of healthcare places significantly indirectly affect health literacy (p <0.05).

Conclusion: To empower woman’s health literacy in online communities, we should pay attention to increase social support, community participation, processing information paradigm, ethnicity, number of social media owned, age, education, distance from home to healthcare facilities, and number of healthcare places. 

Keywords

Acknowledgments: The authors would like to thank administrators of the virtual health community and participants for their generous research support.


Availability of data and materials: The data of the research is not openly available, and it will be available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. 


Conflict of interest: The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.


Consent for publication: Not applicable.


Ethics approval and consent to participate: This research was done by the Declaration of Helsinki and was approved by the research ethics committee at the Faculty of Medicine, Universitas Sebelas Maret, Surakarta, Indonesia (UNS No:20/UN27.06.6.1/KEP/EC/2021). Before obtaining the data, all participants signed informed consent.


Funding: No financial support has been received from any institution for this research.


Author contributions: Conceptualization: AP and VSM; Data curation: VSM, AP, RSP, and EPP; Formal analysis: VSM, AP and EPP; Investigation: VSM; Methodology: VSM, AP, RSP, and EPP; Project administration: EPP; Resources: AP, RSP, and EPP; Validation: AP, RSP, and EPP; Visualization: RSP; Writing–original draft: VSM; Writing–review & editing: AP, RSP, and EPP.

 

Open Access Policy: This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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Available Online from 05 May 2024

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