Instruments to Assess the Digital Health Competencies of Healthcare Professionals: A Scoping Review

Teresa Magalhães^1*Joana Paias Ferreira²

• ¹NOVA National School of Public Health, Public Health Research Centre, Comprehensive Health Research Centre, CHRC, REAL, CCAL, NOVA University Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal
• ²NOVA National School of Public Health, NOVA University Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

Background: The digital transformation of healthcare is reshaping clinical practice, healthcare management, patient-provider interactions, and traditional public health fields. These digital tools enhance safety, quality of care and efficacy, while also supporting the shift from cure to prevention, empowering patients, and promoting overall efficiency of healthcare management and delivery. In healthcare, digital competence remains inconsistently defined and its assessment is often limited by conflation with narrower constructs such as digital literacy. The aim of this scoping review is to identify instruments that capture multiple dimensions of digital health competencies, analyse their scope and reported psychometric properties. This provides a clear view of the essential digital competencies in healthcare, critical for improving patient care, development of targeted education and workforce strategies, and advancing public health functions, contributing to a more equitable and sustainable healthcare systems in the digital era. Methods: A scoping review was conducted according to the JBI Manual for Evidence Synthesis. Three databases (PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science) were searched for studies published from 2015 to June 2025, using established criteria. Identified instruments were mapped by the digital area they apply, healthcare sample and setting, dimensions of competencies assessed and number of items. Further analysis followed two frameworks for questionnaire development (ESS Handbook) and measurement properties (COSMIN). Results: Of the 441 identified studies, 19 met the inclusion criteria. Included studies predominantly used mixed professional samples; among single-group studies, nurses were most often targeted, and hospital settings dominated, with the public health field rarely represented. Most instruments adopted a generalist scope rather than focusing on a specific digital health area. Psychometric reporting was limited, with only three studies offering comprehensive psychometric validation. One instrument introduced a new perspective by explicitly assessing factors influencing the adoption of competencies. Conclusions: Interest in assessing digital health competencies has grown, and the field is continually evolving; however, psychometrically validated instruments remain scarce. Mapping multidimensional instruments reveals recurring core dimensions and adoption-related factors, providing a clear foundation for more specific, targeted, and practice-aligned education and training, and a generalisable core for a standardised, digital public health competency framework for the multi-professional public health workforce.