Health literacy and digital health literacy profiles of final year Health and Physical Education pre-service teachers: a cross-sectional case study

Research shows that teacher and preservice teacher health literacy development should be a priority, with preliminary research reporting that higher levels of teacher's health literacy are associated with health evaluation and other critical health literacy capabilities. However, little is known about Australian preservice teachers' digital health literacy. The aims of this study are to build upon the previous smaller Australian studies with one university that have shown that Health and Physical Education (HPE) preservice teachers have suboptimal health literacy and to be the first study to examine the digital health literacy levels of final year HPE preservice teachers. This cross-sectional study case study recruited three Australian universities based on having a 4-year undergraduate Bachelor of Education (HPE) program. Sixty-five final year HPE preservice teachers consented and completed the HLQ and eHLQ. Across both questionnaires and the three cases (universities), only one significant difference was identified. The eHLQ analysis identified a significant difference for Domain 7 (Digital services that suit individual needs), with university 2 scoring higher than university 3 and a large pairwise effect (P = .04; d ≈ 1.0). Descriptively, there were a small number of differences as represented by medium effect sizes between the three cases. These findings show that HPE preservice teachers in Tasmania, when compared with HPE preservice teachers in NSW, do not feel as socially supported and understood by healthcare professionals, and despite digital health services not being tailored, feel safer and in control when accessing digital health services.