Adolescent Health Literacy, Social Media Exposure, and Perceived Health Status

Abstract

This study determined the relationships of functional, interactive and critical adolescent health literacy with sociodemographic characteristics, social media exposure (SME), and perceived health status (PHS). A total of 314 high school students from Grades 7 to 10 completed a self-administered questionnaire. Findings revealed that functional health literacy is influenced by age (p-value = 0.058) and parents' educational attainment (FEA: p-value = 0.059; MEA: p-value = 0.033); interactive health literacy was only significantly associated with SME (p-value = 0.004); and critical health literacy was significantly correlated with father's educational attainment (p-value = 0.062), SME (p-value = 0.08), and PHS (p-value = 0.019). For the logistic regression model of functional health literacy, only age was a distinct variable, and for interactive health literacy, it was SME. Other variables such as parenting styles, socioeconomic class, and school and peer influences are encouraged for future research for a deeper understanding of adolescent health literacy.

Keywords

• adolescent
• health literacy
• perceived health status
• social media exposure