This study examined the knowledge, misconceptions, and predictors of palliative care among older adults using nationally representative data. A cross-sectional analysis was conducted with 1,390 respondents (≥ 50 years) from cycle 2 of the 2018 Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS). Overall, 63.53% of older adults reported that they had never heard of palliative care. Among those who reported knowledgeable about palliative care, 33.33% thought palliative care is the same as hospice, and 41.42% automatically linked palliative care to death. Ordered logistic regression analysis revealed that online health information seeking behavior is a significant predictor of the level of knowledge about palliative care among older adults. Older adults who utilized the internet for health information were 2.16 (p < .001) times more likely to report being knowledgeable about palliative care than non-internet users. Findings from this study indicate that public health education efforts are needed to increase palliative care knowledge among older adults and the internet may be the key to improving health literacy in palliative care for them.
Keywords: Older adults; Online health information seeking; Palliative care; eHealth.
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