The Internet: A window on adolescent health literacy

IntroductionHealth literacy research has focused predominantly on the adult population, and much less is understood about this concept from an adolescent perspective. The tools currently available to measure adolescent health literacy have been adapted from adult versions. This limits their applicability to young people because of the developmental characteristics that impact on adolescents’ behaviour, including impulse control and judgement skills. This protocol describes the intended development and validity testing of a questionnaire to measure health literacy in adolescents.Methods and analysisThis protocol describes this mixed methods study that has three phases: the first phase will involve grounded research with adolescents using qualitative group interviews, co-design and concept mapping workshops to understand what health and healthy behaviours mean to adolescents and to explore their health literacy needs and the potential domains for the questionnaire. The draft health literacy domains identified will be presented to the youth advisory panel, and the questionnaire will be altered based on their feedback. Cognitive pretesting of the questionnaire items will also be conducted. Phase 2 will involve piloting the questionnaire to a two-stage random sample of young people in five urban and rural schools in Ireland. Test–retest reliability will be conducted using Pearson correlation coefficient. Confirmatory factor analysis will also be conducted to analyse the psychometric properties of the questionnaire. Phase 3 will involve the questionnaire being rolled out to a nationally representative sample of adolescents (n=6052) in Ireland to assess their levels of health literacy.Ethics and disseminationEthical approval to conduct this study has been granted from the University College Dublin Human Research Ethics Committee – Sciences (LS-20–08). Informed assent from adolescents and informed consent from parents/guardians will be sought. The findings of this research will be disseminated at national and international conferences, as well as through publication in peer-reviewed journals.

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An examination of the quality of late-life depression websites on the Internet (Preprint)

10.2196/preprints.36177 ◽

2022 ◽

Author(s):

Teaghan Pryor ◽

Kristin Reynolds ◽

Paige Kirby ◽

Matthew Bernstein

Keyword(s):

Mental Health ◽

Older Adults ◽

Health Literacy ◽

Health Information ◽

Mental Health Literacy ◽

Late Life ◽

The Internet ◽

Late Life Depression ◽

Mental Health Information

BACKGROUND The Internet can increase the accessibility of mental health information and improve the mental health literacy of older adults. The quality of mental health information on the Internet can be inaccurate or biased, leading to misinformation OBJECTIVE This study’s objectives were to evaluate the quality, usability, and readability of websites providing information concerning depression in later life. METHODS Websites were identified through a Google search, and evaluated by assessing quality (DISCERN), usability (Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool; PEMAT) and readability (Simple Measure of Gobbledygook; SMOG). RESULTS The overall quality of late-life depression websites (N = 19) was moderate, usability was low, and readability was poor. No significant relationship was found between quality and readability of websites. CONCLUSIONS Websites can be improved by enhancing information quality, usability, and readability related to late-life depression. The use of high-quality websites may improve mental health literacy and shared treatment decision-making for older adults.

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Adolescents, the Internet, and Health Literacy

10.1542/9781581104097-part03-adolescents ◽

2007 ◽

pp. 370-382

Author(s):

Nicola J. Gray

Keyword(s):

Health Literacy ◽

The Internet

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Examining attitudes toward and ability to interact with an online personal health record: A case study in Saudi Arabia

International Journal of Healthcare ◽

10.5430/ijh.v6n1p1 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

pp. 1 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Bandar Faisal Al-Mifgai ◽

Joseph Sharit ◽

Arzu Onar-Thomas ◽

Shihab Asfour

Keyword(s):

Saudi Arabia ◽

Health Literacy ◽

Health Systems ◽

Health Management ◽

Personal Health Record ◽

The Internet ◽

Personal Health ◽

Health Record ◽

Health Numeracy ◽

Electronic Health

Objective: This study examined the ability for adults from a developing country to use a personal health record (PHR) to perform health-management tasks. The effects of gender differences as well as differences in attitudes about using the internet to manage health prior to and after exposure to the PHR were also investigated.Methods: A simulation of a PHR based on a well-established U.S. online patient portal was designed and tailored for this particular study population. Two hundred and three adults with a mean age of 40.9 years were recruited from various areas in Saudi Arabia and asked to perform seven common health-management tasks of varying degrees of difficulty. Their electronic health literacy and health numeracy, as well as their attitudes about using online health systems for managing their health prior to and following their interaction with the PHR, were assessed using questionnaires.Results: After controlling for education, perceived health status, and comfort using the internet, electronic health literacy and health numeracy were still found to be significant predictors of participants’ task performance, but only for the more challenging health-management tasks. No important differences based on gender were found. Exposure to the PHR significantly increased the acceptability of using the internet for managing their health.Conclusions: The change in attitudes following interaction with the PHR suggests that many adults in this society could benefit from these electronic health systems, including females who, due to cultural considerations, may desire greater control in managing their health. However, the importance of electronic health literacy and health numeracy suggests the need for designs that minimize the impact of these factors for successful performance of health-management tasks.

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A pilot study of adolescent health literacy research in Melbourne: Implementation and reflections

Health Promotion Journal of Australia ◽

10.1002/hpja.425 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Shuaijun Guo ◽

Elise Davis ◽

Rebecca Armstrong ◽

Xiaoming Yu ◽

Lucio Naccarella

Keyword(s):

Health Literacy ◽

Pilot Study ◽

Adolescent Health ◽

Literacy Research

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A mapping analytic approach to trace development of multidisciplinary research field

Journal of Science and Technology Policy Management ◽

10.1108/jstpm-09-2014-0036 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 6 (2) ◽

pp. 98-113 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Xi Zhang ◽

Xiangda Yan ◽

Patricia Ordóñez de Pablos ◽

jinghuai She ◽

Yang Gao ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Health Literacy ◽

Health Information ◽

Domain Knowledge ◽

Early Stage ◽

Research Field ◽

Future Research ◽

The Internet ◽

Content Type ◽

The Future ◽

Practical Implications

Purpose – This paper aims to provide clear domain knowledge and recent progresses on electronic healthcare (e-healthcare). Design/methodology/approach – In this paper, the authors use citation analysis to describe the trends of study on e-health with the help of CiteSpace II, a software for visualizing citation-based analysis. By analyzing the 2,752 publications and their citation data in ISI database, the authors proposed renewable figures and tables on ranking critical people, institutes, keywords and journals. Through the most influential articles given by CiteSpace, the authors can grasp the main direction in e-health researches. Furthermore, the authors analyzed the literature at e-health literacy as a case, to better understand the development of research viewpoints. Findings – Through the analysis, the authors found that e-health is a multi-disciplinary research field and the major research about it has changed. During the early stage, health information quality on the Internet dominates. Gradually, the role of information technology (IT) becomes more important. The authors also found that some researchers, recently, have proposed the effects of IT on e-health literacy which can then improve the ability to use health information on the Internet. Research limitations/implications – This paper has some research limitations, such as using an ISI database with most English publications. The future research may be conducted for collecting local publications data in China. It also has some implications. Based on the results, the authors claimed that IT may significantly improve people’s healthcare variance, e.g. e-health literacy. It is necessary to build new IT-based healthcare theories. Practical implications – This paper also has some practical implications. Practitioners and institute may easily come to know which are the hot topics, top institutes and tendencies in the e-healthcare field. Social implications – This paper may help practitioners to find common interests with other institutions and societies. Originality/value – This paper reported the status and trend of research in this field visually, and the result will help researchers to do more in-depth research in the future.

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Health literacy policy-making for effective child and adolescent health promotion and prevention strategies

European Journal of Public Health ◽

10.1093/eurpub/cky212.834 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 28 (suppl_4) ◽

Author(s):

O Okan ◽

K Sørensen ◽

P Pinheiro ◽

U Bauer

Keyword(s):

Health Promotion ◽

Health Literacy ◽

Adolescent Health ◽

Policy Making ◽

Child And Adolescent ◽

Prevention Strategies ◽

Child And Adolescent Health ◽

Literacy Policy

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Adolescent Health Literacy in Beijing and Melbourne: A Cross-Cultural Comparison

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health ◽

10.3390/ijerph17041242 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 17 (4) ◽

pp. 1242 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Shuaijun Guo ◽

Xiaoming Yu ◽

Elise Davis ◽

Rebecca Armstrong ◽

Elisha Riggs ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Health Literacy ◽

Health Outcomes ◽

Secondary Students ◽

Adolescent Health ◽

School Environment ◽

Cultural Context ◽

Assessment Tool ◽

Cross Cultural ◽

Cultural Perspective ◽

Cultural Groups

While adolescent health literacy has gained momentum, it is under-researched from a cross-cultural perspective. This study aims to compare health literacy among two cultural groups of secondary students in Beijing and Melbourne. A cross-sectional study was conducted with 770 students from five secondary schools in Beijing and Melbourne. A self-administered questionnaire was designed to collect information on health literacy (the eight-item health literacy assessment tool (HLAT-8), the Newest Vital Sign (NVS) and the 47-item Health Literacy Survey (HLS-47)), its antecedents and health outcomes. Overall, students’ health literacy in Melbourne (n = 120) was higher than that in Beijing (n = 650): 28.25 ± 6.00 versus 26.37 ± 5.89 (HLAT-8); and 4.13 ± 1.73 versus 3.65 ± 1.64 (NVS). The proportion of students with low health literacy varied by instruments, representing 23.7–32.2% in Melbourne and 29.0%–45.5% in Beijing. In both cultural groups, students’ self-efficacy, social support, and perceptions of school environment were associated with their health literacy, which in turn predicted their health behaviours, patient-provider communication and health status. Given the nature of our study design and small samples, a cautious conclusion would be that adolescent health literacy is sensitive to the broad cultural context and might be an interactive outcome influenced by an individual’s health skills and the social environment. Particularly, creating a supportive school environment is critical to develop adolescent health literacy that would eventually contribute to better health outcomes.

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