Do you believe more when you know less? The relationship between health literacy via online, trust in medicine and physicians among the Russian patients with oncological diseases

Digital technologies have greatly simplified access to medical information, which has a mixed impact on patients’ trust in doctors and the healthcare system overall. Objective. To investigate the relationship between online health information literacy and trust in medicine and the attending physician in patients with malignancies in Russia. Materials and methods. The study included 367 Russian patients with cancer. Respondents were enrolled through the «Cancer Can Be Cured» community on the Vkontakte social network, which had more than 22.000 subscribers as of January 2025. The survey used the eHealth Literacy Scale (eHEALS), the Medical Mistrust Index (MMI), and the Trust in Physician Scale (TPS). Results. Respondents with low online literacy were more likely to have high trust in medicine in general, while respondents with a high level of online competencies tend to be more critical of medical information. Trust in the attending physician was higher among respondents with high online literacy, which may be due to their better awareness of medical processes and the ability to make a meaningful choice of a specialist. Online literacy was positively correlated with the education level and living in large cities. Conclusions. In patients with severe illnesses, a high level of online competencies, on the one hand, contributes to raising awareness, and on the other hand, can increase anxiety and distrust of official sources of information.