Effects of mental fatigue on basketball decision-making and visual search behavior.

With the arrival of the digital health era, the Internet and mobile technologies have become core channels for the public to access health information, manage health conditions, and make health decisions (). Electronic health literacy (eHealth literacy) refers to the capacity to seek, comprehend, evaluate, and apply health information from online sources to address health-related issues (). Individuals with higher eHealth literacy levels tend to exhibit better health self-management, active engagement in medical decision-making, and favorable mental status and quality of life (). As an important cross-sectional correlate of health, eHealth literacy is closely associated with improved health-related behaviours, medication adherence, and overall health outcomes (). Numerous tools have been developed to assess eHealth literacy (), among which the eHealth Literacy Scale (eHEALS) is the most widely used instrument (, ). As a multidimensional construct, eHEALS is commonly used to evaluate overall eHealth literacy levels, but most existing studies treat eHealth literacy as a homogeneous construct, analyzing it through total scores or dimension means. This approach overlooks the potential heterogeneity among individuals, ignoring the possibility of uneven development in different dimensions of eHealth literacy (e.g., proficient application but poor critical evaluation ability). Latent Profile Analysis (LPA), a person-centered statistical method, can identify homogeneous subgroups (profiles) within a heterogeneous population based on multiple observable variables (). It shifts the research perspective from relationships between variables to overall patterns of individuals, making it suitable for exploring the latent heterogeneity of eHealth literacy. LPA has been widely applied in fields such as mental health (), smartphone use behaviour (, ), and digital literacy (), but its application in eHealth literacy research remains insufficient, especially regarding the identification of eHealth literacy profiles and their associated sociodemographic and health-related correlates.