Procena zdravstvene pismenosti adolescenata

Abstract

Introduction: Health literacy enables adolescents to access, understand, and evaluate health information, act on it in a relevant and competent way, make decisions, and take measures that promote health in different contexts of everyday life. The study aimed to assess adolescents' health and e-health literacy levels, evaluate the differences in adolescents' health literacy to sociodemographic characteristics and health determinants, and determine their relationship. Material and methods: The study was designed as an observational, analytical, comparative, and cross-sectional survey of secondary vocational schools and gymnasium pupils. The sample consisted of a total of N = 456 adolescents. The following research instruments were used: The Health Literacy Measure for Adolescents (HELMA), the e-Health Literacy Assessment Scale (e-HEALS) and a general questionnaire for obtaining sociodemographic data and data on health determinants created for this research. Results: The desired health literacy level was reached by 61.6% of adolescents, and 38.4% were at limited health literacy. A high level of e-health literacy was established in the majority of adolescents. Adolescents showed the highest level of health literacy in understanding health information and communicating about it, and the lowest level was in the domain of calculations. The difference in the level of health literacy was determined by age, school performance and mother's education, as well as by health determinants. The health literacy level and e-health literacy among adolescents are strongly positively correlated. Conclusion: Considering that more than one-third of adolescents have limited health literacy and the impact of health literacy on disease prevention, self-care and quality of life, it is necessary to work on raising the level of health literacy among adolescents through educational interventions.