Electronic Health Literacy Promotion Strategies for Adolescent Girls in Shahrekord: A Based Cross-Sectional Study

Authors
Sara Eslami Farsani
Elahe Tavassoli
Forouzan Ganji
Asma Abdellah
10.61186/ibj.25th-11th-IACRTIMSS
Abstract
Introduction: Today, a fifth of the world's population comprises adolescents aged 10-19; 500 million of these people are adolescent girls. Investing in the health of adolescents is one of the main strategies for achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Health concerns are a phenomenon that preoccupies many people at some point in their lives, and in some cases, even though the evidence does not show a specific disease, the person's concerns are not resolved, and health anxiety continues. E-health literacy helps people manage important health issues, make informed health decisions, or communicate with doctors. The present study investigated the electronic health literacy promotion strategies in adolescent girls of Shahrekord based on a cross-sectional study.

Methods and Materials: This cross-sectional study was conducted in 2023 on 351 teenage girls of Shahrekord, whose information was recorded entirely in the SIB system. The sampling method was random and used to collect information from the Electronic Health Literacy Questionnaire and the Health Anxiety Questionnaire. Finally, the data collected by the questionnaire was coded and analyzed after entering the computer by SPSS version 25 software using descriptive and analytical tests.

Results: The average age of the adolescent girls was 0.834 ± 85.15 years. The average scores of electronic health literacy and health anxiety in adolescent girls were 79.07 ± 14.54 and 83.3 ± 35.73, respectively. There was an inverse statistical relationship between E-health literacy and health anxiety in girls. The highest average health literacy score at the age of 17 was observed among girls whose fathers are retired and whose mothers are housewives, as well as among those whose parents have university degree. Additionally, mothers in the age group of 35-40 years and fathers in the age group of 40-45 years contributed to this high score. There was a significant relationship between E-health literacy and factors such as parents' occupation, parents' education, being the second child, and having older siblings (p ˂ 0.05).

Conclusion and Discussion: Improving E-health literacy may be an effective strategy to reduce health anxiety in adolescent girls who are the future mothers of the country. Therefore, developing comprehensive programs for cyberspace, creating simple and understandable media and educational materials, and establishing efficient educational interventions for people with insufficient E-health literacy can be a practical step to develop health literacy skills, ultimately reducing health anxiety among adolescents.



Keywords
Adolescent
Anxiety
Health literacy