Health Information Sources and Preferences as Perceived by Adolescents, Pediatricians, Teachers and School Nurses

Abstract

To facilitate establishment of comprehensive health education systems for students, the responses of 600 adolescents, 99 pediatricans, 71 teachers, and 70 school nurses were compared. Major findings are that professionals, across groups, were concordant in their perceptions of all items except one pertaining to preferred and actual sources of health information for students. Adults, however, differed from adolescents (p < .001) in their perceptions of all concerns pertaining to prefered and actual sources of information, student knowledge of where to get help, student ability to get help, the value of additional health information, the selection of various topics for classroom presentations, and the timing of topic introductions into classrooms. Results suggest the need to examine simultaneously the views of students and professional groups in order to provide salient, coordinated adolescent health education.