Digital health in Portugal: Exploring perceptions, barriers, and experiences through a focus group study

Purpose Digital health (DH) has undergone rapid expansion in recent years, driven by new innovations aimed at improving healthcare quality, service efficiency, and patient empowerment. However, DH adoption and usage remains inconsistent, shaped by disparities in individual and contextual factors. This study explores key perceptions, barriers, and experiences with DH in Portugal to identify systemic challenges and opportunities for equitable integration. Methods A qualitative research design was employed, utilizing focus groups discussions. Participants were recruited via institutional e-mail campaigns and social media outreach. Five focus group sessions were conducted, with six to eight participants each, via Zoom videoconference. Sessions were recorded, transcribed verbatim, and inductive thematic analysis to identify emergent patterns. Results Thirty-four participants engaged across five focus groups, with data saturation achieved by the fifth session. Thematic analysis revealed seven core themes: 1) DH concepts; 2) experiences with DH; 3) health information; 4) advantages of DH; 5) concerns towards DH; 6) barriers to DH access and use; 7) solutions to improve the DH framework. Conclusion Despite the digital health framework improvement throughout the years, a lot needs to be done to make digital health truly accessible to everyone in Portugal, as significant gaps persist in accessibility, equity, and user-centric design. Concerns regarding equitable access, digital health literacy, infrastructure, patient-healthcare professional relationship and AI are some of the many dimensions that must be considered when working towards digital transformation in healthcare. Future policies must balance technological innovation with equitable access to ensure all population segments take advantage of digital health.